laid upon the Table:

Mr Chairman, at the outset I should like to make use of this opportunity of saying how pleased I am that the new Director-General of the Department of Foreign Affairs is Mr Neil Peter van Heerden. I thought hon members would be interested in a brief summary of his curriculum vitae.

Mr Van Heerden joined the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1959 and performed valuable work in the preparation of the pleadings in the SWA World Court case. He was appointed South African Vice-Consul in Tokyo, Japan, in 1963. He served in this capacity until 1967 when he was entrusted with the opening of the first South African embassy in the Republic of China, in Taipei, in 1967. He was then a young man entrusted with an important task. In 1968 he was transferred back to Pretoria, where he worked on the West African desk. In 1970 he was transferred to Teheran, Iran, to open the first South African embassy in that country. In the same year he was promoted to First Secretary at the South African embassy in Washington, USA. In 1975 he was transferred back to Pretoria, where he worked on the Southern African desk.

Mr Van Heerden later became involved in the negotiations on South West Africa, and also served as head of the strategy planning section of the department. In 1980 he was appointed ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he served until 1985, when he was transferred back to Pretoria as Deputy Director-General for African Affairs, and promoted to Director-General of the department in 1987.

*I am sure that we all wish Mr and Mrs Van Heerden well in the demanding task they have taken on in South Africa’s interest.

I should like to continue by conveying my sincere thanks to all hon members who took part in the debate on this Vote yesterday. I was not present, but my department briefed me as fully as possible on what took place here. I was also informed that the debate proceeded quite peacefully, in fact, so the last thing I want to do today is disturb that peaceful course of events. I should like to express my gratitude to the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament for postponing the discussion of this Vote on one occasion on account of my other commitments. I also wish to thank all parties here and in the other two Houses sincerely for the understanding they displayed for the work which had to be done in connection with the exchange of Maj Du Toit. It is most highly appreciated, and I can assure hon members that it is something which has a supportive and encouraging effect on one psychologically. I thank hon members again.

We are certainly glad that Hamlet is back! [Interjections.]

While I was in Maputo yesterday, the hon the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs stood in for me with skill, expertise and composure, for which I feel profound gratitude and appreciation. However, I would expect nothing less of him.

Mr Chairman, please allow me to convey my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues, the hon the Minister of Defence and the hon the Minister of Law and Order, as well as all their and my officials who worked unceasingly—sometimes literally day and night—and with dedication to make possible the exchange of various citizens, including Maj Wynand du Toit.

However, there is one person in particular whom I want to thank, namely the hon the State President.

Hear, hear!

A while ago he called in the hon the Minister of Defence, the hon the Minister of Law and Order and myself and said to us: “Colleagues, it is time Maj Du Toit came home. That is your assignment. Carry it out. I do not mind how you do it, but do it.”

The hon the State President gave us full scope and encouragement to employ any methods, conventional and unconventional, and we are most grateful for his lead, his guidelines and his support. We thank him and Mrs Botha most particularly for having received the Du Toit family in their home very late last night—it was after midnight—and for this South African family’s moving reunion in the residence of the hon the State President. In fact, this occasion has a wider symbolic significance if we think about it carefully and want to attach that wider significance to it, which illustrates how South Africans can be united under a leader who provides salutary guidance and leadership.

Hear, hear!

I should like to reply to a few observations which were made in the debate and which were conveyed to me.

To begin with, I must say that a feel a little unhappy about remarks made by the hon member for Soutpansberg. I do not wish to spend much time on them or quarrel with the hon member about them, because he did not reveal the source of his information. However, he said the following:

It is a pity that the hon member deemed it necessary to bring up in this Committee what he himself called a less agreeable aspect, because what he said is not true. In the first place, any Minister of any department, but I think a Minister of Foreign Affairs in particular, would be foolish if, in the difficult period South Africa is going through, he did not appoint the very best people available to posts in which the battle must be fought and judgement, perseverance and insight of the highest order are required. If one neglected to appoint one’s most efficient personnel to the key posts, one would in the process put oneself at a disadvantage and before long reap the bitter fruits of that omission, and one would also place the country at a disadvantage.

What is more, one would not be able to conceal it. On account of the nature of their task, there is no way in which officials of the Department of Foreign Affairs can keep a low profile. They have either to represent the country overseas or to perform their duties here at head office and ensure an uninterrupted flow of instructions to all our offices abroad so as to enable our representatives there to resist the fierce onslaught on our country. Whether one indulges in favouritism externally or internally, it would inevitably come out, because the onslaught on South Africa has intensified to too great an extent to leave any blue-eyed boys unscathed. Such appointments would have become known to members of this Parliament, for example, because they are constantly dealing with my department. Everyone would know about them.

Besides that, the 82 top officials of my department very recently—a few weeks ago—participated in an interesting exercise over a period of six weeks. At intervals, on Fridays and Saturdays, they held their own brainstorming sessions with the aim of promoting greater efficiency and improved performance in the department. All sections took part in this, including all 82 of the officials in the middle-management and top-management echelons of the department. 1 am not aware of a single one of the 82 who expressed the kind of sentiment which the hon member for Soutpansberg mentioned. Indeed, as far as I know, all 82 found the exercise immensely satisfying, as they do the work of the department.

I must therefore assume that the hon member for Soutpansberg had in mind another department in another country when he made that statement. I ask him not to repeat it, because allegations of this kind hurt people’s feelings, particularly as he did not mention any names. I do not know of 15 such officials in my department.

†The hon member for Constantia suggested that more sanctions are coming. That may be true. We are concerned about what may happen towards the end of September into October. The third Tuesday in September is when the annual session of the General Assembly of the UN starts. We must expect that new attempts will be made there to institute further sanctions against South Africa. We expect the same thing to happen at the Commonwealth Conference in Vancouver. The indications are there—the threats were made—that they will seriously consider more sanctions. European governments in general are holding this sword over our heads virtually all the time. I am therefore not trying to play down the importance of this matter. We are aware of this threat and I can almost say the intimidation and blackmail that other governments have created in the form of sanctions against South Africa. The decisive question that we must ask ourselves is: Can we afford the price which is demanded of us in order to avoid sanctions? I believe that we cannot.

The hon member referred to the Eminent Persons’ Group of the Commonwealth. He will know that right at the start the hon the State President himself agreed to that group of seven eminent persons visiting South Africa but the hon the State President informed them that they could do incalculable harm if they came to South Africa and tried to prescribe to the South African Government or if they saw themselves as a pressure group charged with the task of extracting concessions from us and generally engaged in prescribing solutions to problems which were the sole concern of South Africans. The hon the State President also told them that if they were genuinely interested in furthering the concept of negotiation in South Africa they would be welcome but he warned against any proposals that would increase tension and conflict in this country and any proposals that would not facilitate the ending of violence in this country.

What happened? I myself said that there was potential in that mission. In the beginning I had very promising talks with certain members of that group. That is why I felt inclined at the time to state publicly that there was a possibility of something constructive coming out of the work being done by the group. There were members of that group who came from Africa. I would not like to mention names but in private conversations, after they had seen the Pretoria/Witwatersrand industrial area, I was told that this was the most advanced state in Africa. They wanted to help us so that that developed infrastructure would not be damaged. A fellow African said to me: There is no country in Africa that can compete with you. He could not believe what he saw here. He admired our achievements in all the important spheres of life. He did not know so many Blacks worked in our mines and what the conditions were. He told me that there was no African state where the Africans earned the wages they earn in South Africa and where they owned the number of motor cars and vehicles that they owned in South Africa. On a Friday afternoon he himself watched the Ben Schoeman Highway and the bypass to Pietersburg in the north. He could not believe his eyes when he saw how the bakkies and kombies were loaded with groceries, fridges, beds and everything else. This was the observation of a very prominent Black African.

Right from the start I saw that the main obstacle to those negotiations would be the question of violence. At that time it was the Government’s standpoint that Mr Mandela could be released and the ANC and PAC unbanned if they renounced violence. That was the position of this Government. It was not a policy or principle designed only with a view to the radicals on the left. It was a general principle applicable to everyone in South Africa, a principle we believed all civilized governments throughout the world could accept and subscribe to.

I warned the members of the group that a proposal to the effect that the matching commitment of the ANC would amount to no more than a suspension of violence for as long as we sat around a table, would be totally unacceptable to this Government, because this Government has not declared war against any party in this country. This Government and the ANC cannot be seen as two parties that must make peace with one another. I can assure the hon member here today that there are other Black leaders in South Africa—whom I would rather not name—who warned me that if my Government talked to the ANC alone, they would never talk to me. There are Black leaders in this country who said that if I talked to Bishop Tutu, they would never talk to me again. “Why give him that prominence?”, they asked. There is a multiplicity of Black parties and Black interest groups in this country who disagree among themselves on important issues.

The time has come to get to the truth about the realities in this country. The PFP knows the truth but they run away from it. They know as well as I do that ethnic diversity is a reality in South Africa. They know that.

Mr Chairman, is the hon the Minister prepared to take a question?

My time is very limited, Mr Chairman, and this is an important matter. With respect to the hon member, I do not have the time to reply to a question today.

The fact of the matter is that no government, not even the PFP should they gain power, would be able to govern this country unless it took into account the realities of South Africa.

*We simply cannot wish these realities away. We cannot rid ourselves of our diversity with the wave of a wand. However, when I am told that we should re-examine our situation in the wake of the EPG, I regret to have to say—I have tried hard, but honesty has compelled me to come to this conclusion—that these theatrical visits to South Africa, whether by the American twelve or by the twelve countries of the EEC or whomever, are not planned because they are really interested in a peaceful solution, but because they want to create publicity for themselves by cresting the wave of the momentum which has built up against us, and dare not dissociate themselves from distorted and hostile perceptions of our situation.

That momentum is taken further in an attempt to force change on South Africa which would be destructive for all the people of South Africa. We must now accept—and the outside world will also have to accept—that South Africans will have to solve their own problems themselves. The only encouragement which South Africans should be offered by the outside world is, therefore, that of sitting around a conference table and jointly finding solutions to this country’s problems. We dare not pay any heed to those who will not have to bear the responsibility for our future constitutional structures.

The hon member for Berea launched quite a fierce attack on what he termed “growing violence, the violation of human rights and financial mismanagement” in the TBVC states. Yes, I am also concerned about ineffective expenditure in some of these countries. That is true. We made an estimate of the expenditure incurred since these countries attained independence, expenditure which could possibly be regarded as ineffective, and arrived at a figure of not much more than 5%—which is quite an achievement in comparison with the rest of Africa. It is pretty good.

If people took the trouble to visit the capital cities of these countries, and not only the other countries which are hostile to us, they would see what is going on in Bisho, Thohoyandou, Mmabatho and Umtata. It remains a source of concern for me that there are South Africans who are persistently inclined to regard these states with disdain and simply seek to find fault. We all need one another. We also need to have understanding for one another.

We made certain arrangements which I, together with my officials, explained earlier this year to the Standing Committee on Finance. We furnished a fairly complete explanation, but perhaps the hon member—I do not hold it against him—was not present. We explained at length how meagre the sources of income of these countries were and told the committee that the South African Government was sympathetic towards this problem and was investigating ways of increasing those sources of income—hence the policy of decentralised economic growth points. This shows that we have not simply given up in despair. We have taken imaginative and concrete steps, and there are indications that all four states have accepted the proposals we put forward, under the leadership of the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Dr Simon Brand, in particular, for the amelioration of their financial predicament.

If I have been informed correctly, the hon member for Brakpan asked why we were erecting such expensive offices in Maputo. He pointed out that we did not have diplomatic relations with that government. That is not entirely correct. The Diplomatic Privileges Act was amended a number of years ago by Parliament in order to make provision for just such more informal forms of diplomacy, so that we could be in the position to award immunity and privileges to diplomats who, in the old Western, formal sense of the word, might not qualify as diplomatic agents or representatives. Such provision is necessary in the prevailing circumstances.

The truth of the matter is that the former Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, occupies a significant place in the history of South Africa, and in that of the Transvaal and the Eastern Transvaal in particular. That is a fact. It is still the harbour through which we can export our products worldwide at the cheapest tariffs. That harbour remains a gateway for South Africa, for the farmers of the Eastern Transvaal. What is more important, however, is that the houses to be erected for our officials who are resident there must be decent ones, and I assume that the hon member will agree with that.

Yesterday’s exchange took place in Maputo. I cannot work on the premise that South Africa’s relations with Mozambique will always have to be frosty and riddled of suspicion. I must base my work on the assumption that South Africa has to be represented in Maputo; that the railway line there has to serve South Africa’s interests as well; that we have to find a solution for the large number of Black workers from Mozambique who stream over the border illegally; that freedom will come to Mozambique sooner or later. Through all these difficult, turbulent times South Africa’s flag must fly in Maputo. This is something of which we can be proud and which I should like us to see in the light of what I have said.

If we take as our point of departure the fact that they are too friendly towards the ANC, I have the problem that the ANC’s head office is in London. The hon the State President and I discussed this with Mrs Thatcher personally. We submitted a well-motivated 80-page memorandum to the British government in order to indicate that their presence and activities there might clash with British law. They did not agree with us and let the matter rest. If we were to sever our relations with countries in which the ANC is recognised or allowed to function, I would have to close virtually all our offices in Europe. Surely that is out of the question.

Earlier this year, and once more yesterday, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition launched quite a vehement attack on the Americans and President Reagan. The hon the State President recently referred to President Reagan and certain standpoints of his with a degree of respect, but this does not mean that he or I have ever agreed with all of President Reagan’s standpoints. The fact is that he takes the following view of our constitutional future:

It is true that he has on occasion made remarks from which one can deduce that he advocates a system of one man, one vote, that he wants to see all forms of separation abolished and that he was critical of the Government’s state of emergency and steps which we or our security forces took. It is, however, also true that he has spoken out in the strongest terms against the ANC and terrorism. It is also a fact that he said that this Government need not conclude agreements or negotiate with any party which advocates the creation of a Marxist state in South Africa.

Therefore, when the hon the State President and I refer to President Reagan with respect, we are referring to those standpoints of his with which we are able to associate ourselves. That is all.

Regarding the standpoints with which we cannot associate ourselves, we have a task to perform, and our offices have been instructed to try persistently to bring more and more information and convincing arguments to the attention of such a head of State. It may be that, on account of his busy programme, he is not always informed by the kind of people we should like to see informing him. Let me be frank. We are in touch with American senators and members of congress, and they do their best to convey other points of view to the President.

Time does not allow me to say much more, except to react to the speech of the hon member for Seapoint, He saw a parallel in yesterday’s exchange agreement and the release of certain prisoners in South Africa. I am afraid that there is no parallel to be drawn between these two cases. In one case we were dealing with states and governments whose citizens were in detention in other countries. In the other case those involved were our citizens who were in detention within the country. There is consequently no parallel to be drawn. [Interjections.] I am very sorry, but that is the truth of the matter.

I shall explain where the parallel with South Africa’s internal situation actually lies. The parallel lies in the attainment of a balance of interests among entities which differ from one another. That balance has not always existed. There was a time when the Angolan government did not have enough on its side of the equation for it to decide that the exchange was in its interests. Then, in a way which suited everybody, we added something, and eventually the French, Angolan, South African, Ciskeian, Mozambican and Dutch governments and Unita all felt that they had put together a package from which each could derive sufficient advantage.

That was the point of equilibrium—the balance or equilibrium of interests—which was attained. It was not primarily done because there was any love lost among the parties involved—let me be honest with the hon member. We must have no illusions about that. It was the attainment of a balance of interests. To be able to get that far, all the parties naturally had to be willing, at least in principle, to take one another’s interests and limitations into account and also to scale them down mutually.

Now I shall explain where the parallel with South Africa’s internal situation lies. It lies in the fact that the communities of South Africa—if for argument’s sake one could for the moment regard these entities as states—must take one another’s interests and limitations into account. If they do so, they will reach agreement. Of course, we shall not attain that balance as long as the demands we make of one another are too high—for example if the demands of the Black communities are too high and unacceptable to the Whites and as long as the Whites feel that they will inevitably be overwhelmed and that their style, norms and values will be destroyed. Let us all get down to the nitty-gritty today.

Similarly, if the Black communities feel that the system which the Whites offer them is no better than what communism offers them, and that they have only their chains to lose, there will never be an agreement based on a balance of interests. The Government recognises and accepts this fact.

It amazes me somewhat that we continue to conduct debates about this in virtually all three Houses of this Parliament. I want to be quite frank about this today. We debate it without reaching the crux of South Africa’s problematic situation regarding negotiation. We use the same arguments repeatedly without getting to the crux of the matter. We recently fought an election. This party received the support of the majority of White voters, and we shall receive it again. I am not saying this provocatively or boastfully. The majority of Whites entrusted this Government with certain steps they wanted us to take, but they told us there were certain steps we were not to take.

No one in this Committee can accuse me of racism. The CP calls me a liberal and worse. Everyone knows that. Looking further north to Africa, I can tell hon members I look forward to change and negotiation and to the removal of discrimination, but I do not see my way clear to supporting negotiations which would destroy this country’s economy and value-systems. [Interjections.]

The Black leadership will also have to realise that if it does not scale down its demands, no agreement will be reached here based on a balance of interests.

There is a Government in power here which is prepared to negotiate and to make those negotiations attractive for all our communities, so that everyone in this country can identify with the railways, the harbours, the coasts, the borders, the land, the roads, the factories and the mines. If one of these elements of our economy were adversely affected, we would all be adversely affected. The interests of all our communities would suffer. That point has not yet been reached.

We in this House must take care not to bring about further alienation between communities or to encourage expectations which cannot be realised. We must urge one another to enter into a process of negotiation with one another by means of which we may devise the right package and attain an equilibrium of interests.

South Africa is big enough; it has the minerals, the raw materials and the technological know-how to achieve that, but I am afraid one cannot negotiate with a party that states that it is interested, not in sharing power, but simply in a surrender of power. Nor can one negotiate with parties that state that they will not grant the other communities participation in matters of common interest.

Vote agreed to.

Vote No 6—“Development Planning” and Schedules 2 to 5:

Mr Chairman, I was in fact sitting waiting for the words “Constitutional Planning and Development”, but now it has another name.

We are engaged in the discussion of one of the most important Votes. We from our side would like to do justice to this Vote and we have a few remarks to make in regard to the hon the Minister’s vision of the future—his vision of the constitutional future—and we wish to ask him certain questions.

In reply to my speech on his Vote earlier, the State President said—I think he meant it in lighter vein—that if in politics power was the name of the game, he wanted nothing to do with it. Surely that is what politics is about, and I think that the NP has spent several millions of rands to acquire political power and use that power to govern. I do not think we need argue with one another about that, because it is so.

The Government and the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning have a very important task to perform. It is the function of a government to govern a country, create sound foreign relations and, within the country, to see to it that there is development and law and order and that the country is safeguarded from unfair and unreasonable outside pressure. The Government has to see to it that the interests of a specific people, such as our people, is protected, and that a political model is adopted in accordance with which there is full self-determination for a people, and must prevent that people from being subjected to domination.

This immediately brings one to the question of certain political models. I think that the hon the Minister, who appeared on a platform with a foreign academic and presented certain models to South Africa, will be aware of this. There is the so-called “one-race model”, which means that we in South Africa need to have a preponderance of power in the hands of the one race which is in the majority. According to the NP’s view this is the 20 million who live within the unitary state of South Africa. This means Black domination over the whole of South Africa.

Rubbish!

If this is indeed rubbish, I wonder what perspicacity is? That hon member says it is rubbish. There are 20 million people in the same country and he speaks about equal treatment and democracy. I think that hon member should have his head read. [Interjections.] Wait, let me not be put off by that hon member. It seems to me he must still begin to think. No one accepts the model of one race. Does he want to accept it?

The second model is the so-called no-race model or the “non-racial society”. I do not think anyone who takes the realities of South Africa into account would be in favour of that. There is no such thing. The NP agrees with us that there is no such thing, and I think that the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs re-emphasised that whoever overlooked ethnicity in South Africa was out of touch with the realities of the country.

Then, too, there is the three-stream model. This is the model which, in fact, forms the basis of the present Constitution of South Africa. Before this model was put into operation it was, in fact, remarkable for its defects, with the result that even the NP said that it was not a final model and that it would have to be amended. That model has been written off by the left and the right; in fact, from all sides. It has been condemned and found to be unacceptable.

Then there is the so-called four-stream model or consociational model which functions in accordance with the principle of a coalition government, a minority veto, proportional representation and group autonomy. Even in liberal circles people say they are afraid that the Government might want to put that scheme into effect in South Africa. They say this because they realise what coalition government is and how a minority veto can paralyse a country. They also realise the dangers of proportional representation for South Africa. They know, too, what the implications are if one has a Black-White preponderance of four to one in a unitary state.

I think one should also refer to what I want to call the unknown model. This is in fact the model of people like the hon the Minister of National Education. They do not have a model, but they say they are going to get one. [Interjections.]

I wish to quote from an interview given to Leadership by the hon the Minister of National Education. It appeared in No 4, volume 5, 1986. He was arguing against a fourth House in Parliament that did not make sense. I quote:

We accept that the process is in operation and that thought is being given to this. The hon the Minister went on to say:

That is of prodigious truth proportions.

This is familiar language from the NP, but I think I should also just mention the speech made by the hon the Minister on the Friday before last, when he maintained with great vehemence that the NP would not sell out the Whites and would not accept a dispensation whereby the Whites would be subjected to domination. I accept that, but we ask how it is to be done and how this is to be prevented. That answer has not yet been given us. I am not attacking the hon the Minister, and it is with approbation that I quote him, but on 25 March 1982 that hon Minister made the following statement at Tukkies:

These words were very sympathetically received by all conservatives in South Africa, and also by us in the CP.

However, at this stage I have a few comments to make. The hon the Minister said that urban Blacks did not form part of the legislative and executive authority in conjunction with the Whites, the Indians and the Coloureds, but he said the Blacks would nevertheless participate in the legislative and executive authorities. He included them. I may say that it seems to me as if the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has won the round as far as this point is concerned.

That is for sure!

According to this, however, the Government does not know how it is going to do it. Therefore the Government is saying that it will climb into the tree, but as yet it does not have the tree! [Interjections.] This tree story has now boomeranged on the NP with a vengeance as far as this is concerned! [Interjections.]

Let us just consider for a moment the “trials and tribulations” of the three-stream model. In regard to the current system, as it is operating at present, the NP wants to tell us in the CP…

Are you now referring to the existing system?

Yes, the existing system. After all, the existing system is a tricameral system. The NP says that there is not going to be a fourth chamber. We do not know where it is going to sit, but it will have a say over legislation.

The NP gave the assurance that they would close every loophole so that the Constitution could not be amended without the majority support—I am referring now to specific clauses of the Constitution—of all three of the Houses. However, what do we see now? The Government is now intimating that it wants to amend the Constitution for certain specific reasons that one need not mention at this point. It now needs the support of the majority of all three Houses. Now the hon the leader of the majority party in the House of Representatives comes along and tries, or so it seems to me, to blackmail the Government—I can express it in no other way. I now quote from The Star of 2 September:

He went on to say:

A little further he stated:

[Interjections.] Then he went on to say:

Some paragraphs later the following is reported:

He went on in that vein, and I do not even wish to quote the way he referred to the hon the State President which, in my opinion, was totally lacking in respect. It is no secret that I disagree with the hon the State President on political grounds, but I think I have always tried to refrain from saying the kind of thing about his office and his person that the hon the leader of the Labour Party said about him when he compared him to certain animals. I should prefer not to quote that, because I do not think it would be appropriate to do so.

You should just teach that lesson to those who write your pamphlets, too.

Very well, there are pamphlets and pamphlets. [Interjections.] I think that as leader of the NP in the Transvaal, the hon the Minister of National Education is, in any event, in no position to talk, because they dredged up a statement of mine from the archives and falsified it. [Interjections.] Let us leave it at that because it is past history.

All we ask in this regard is whether the Government is going to allow itself to be blackmailed over the amendment of the Constitution. I am tempted to make the statement that the Government will surely not allow itself to be blackmailed when it comes to amending the Constitution. Is the Government going to swallow an insult for the sake of a dispensation which is in any event failing, a dispensation which is in any event due to be changed? Is it prepared to tell the hon the leader of the Labour Party that the Group Areas Act is of fundamental importance to own community life—at least, for us Whites—and is therefore not negotiable? [Interjections.] Are they prepared to tell him that?

The hon the leader of the Labour Party is not demanding “chocolates”—he is demanding the sacrifice of the Whites’ right to an own community life in their own areas. I had wanted to put a question, but instead I shall make the following statement. The NP and the Government are not, after all, prepared to put the White man’s head on a block by acceding to that demand by the Labour Party.

I should like to devote the latter part of my speech to certain prospects envisaged by the hon the Minister—his constitutional vision of the future. I also wish to refer to an article entitled “In Search of Democracy”—I think it was written by him—in Leadership. In this article he wrote about various matters. One was the participation of the Black communities. He wrote:

We accept that the Government has accepted that the urban Black people are now no longer a different entity but form part of the whole South African system and that they will enjoy joint decision-making up to the highest level, the level at which the hon the State President must decide what are and are not own affairs.

In the second statement made here—I should be obliged if the hon the Minister could spell it out to us in greater detail—there was reference to the fact that:

A confederation.

I hear someone speaking about a confederation. My comment on that is that the CP accepts the interdependence and need for co-operation with independent Black states. Secondly we accept the need for agreements capable of serving the best interests of the Republic of South Africa and also, perhaps, the best interests of those Black states. We further recognise that development aid is necessary to allow peoples to achieve greater autonomy.

However, we now ask what the reference to “joint development” and “joint decision-making” means, and what it means when they say “may form a further element in a future constitutional framework”. We should like to know what that means, because it surely cannot mean that one has one constitutional framework for various independent states, one constitutional framework which is imposed by one central authority, and that that is what one wants.

I contend that that statement contains an invitation to independent Black states to become part of a unitary state—a federation is also a unitary state—with one umbrella parliament, with one central government or authority, with one defence force, one budget and one constitution. I say that that kind of statement contains an invitation to the states that have become independent to return to the fold, with all the benefits that that may entail.

A further statement by the hon the Minister was the following:

I think this is a very significant statement by the hon the Minister. There are a few remarks I wish to make in this regard.

The first is that the CP is not only in favour of self-government for various peoples in their own territories; we shall provide them with positive support to achieve independence and, where possible, we shall assist in guaranteeing their independence.

Secondly, we say that if a specific people refuses to accept full self-determination or independence, that does not give it the right to rule jointly over my people.

Hear, hear!

If Dr Gatsha Buthelezi refuses to accept independence for KwaZulu, I say he can refuse to do so, but that refusal does not give him the right to rule jointly over the Whites. We deny that such a right exists purely by virtue of his refusal to accept full authority over his own territory.

I also say that we have no objection in principle when a people seeks to separate itself geographically—that is to say, physically—politically and constitutionally from other peoples and their territories. To tell the truth, we endorse the right to secession from a multiracial unitary state. We endorse that right. The hon the Minister endorses that right.

We are also saying, however, that we shall not consequently act as Nigeria did against Biafra, where people were forced by violence into a unitary state. We believe that that is absolutely unacceptable. I am arguing on the basis of a standpoint accepted by the hon the Minister. Self-government, independence, the right to contract out, the right to secede from a specific state and establish one’s own, independent state—that is our standpoint. We say that we recognise that right.

Now, however, we ask the following question. While the hon the Minister holds out to the Black peoples the prospect of having the best of both worlds, in other words the blessings of power-sharing in a unitary state and the freedom of a separate, secessionary state—he is presenting them with the prospect of two best worlds—we ask whether the hon the Minister perhaps has in mind self-government for Whites in certain areas, a right parallel to that of Black peoples who occupy a specific area, where Whites can obtain self-government in that specific area, and in addition the right to secede? We are asking whether the hon the Minister has in mind self-government for Whites in certain areas, as a parallel to Black areas with their own governments? Would such self-governing White areas also have the right to separation? We ask whether that is within the pattern of thinking of the hon the Minister.

If he does not have that in mind, we ask whether he now wishes the Black peoples to have something different, something better, something greater than he wants his own people to have. If the hon the Minister tells us that he does not begrudge the White man that right, and the White people were then to say that they found a system of power-sharing untenable and wanted to take the hon the Minister’s idea further, what would the Government do? Would we have a second Biafra? Would we perhaps have a second Slagtersnek? What would we have? Or would that right, too, be implicitly recognised in that statement with regard to the White man?

Mr Chairman, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition put a number of questions to the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning personally about what he thought of certain matters, questions to which the hon the Minister will undoubtedly respond effectively in due course.

For the sake of the record, however, there is just one statement by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition that I do want to put right. I am referring to the statement the hon the leader has made on more than one occasion, and that is that the hon the State President supposedly intimated that as far as politics was concerned, power was not the name of the game.

Of course he said it!

Well, what else was he supposed to have said? [Interjections.]

That was not what the hon the State President alleged. [Interjections.] The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition was not the only one in the House when the hon the State President was speaking.

We shall show you his Hansard!

What the hon the State President expressly stated, in reply to a statement by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition about power being the name of the game when it came to politics, was that it was not merely a question of power.

Oh no, Helgaard, old chap! [Interjections.]

Yes, Sir, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon members of the CP were not the only ones in the House when it happened. [Interjections.] The hon the State President very clearly stated that politics was not merely a question of power.

I do not, however, want to devote the few minutes at my disposal solely to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition’s statement.

Constitutional development is not a one-off event. It is a an on-going process. As far as South Africa is concerned, we are neither at the beginning nor at the end of that process. In fact, as far as South Africa is concerned, the process of constitutional development began long before 1652. The foundation-stones of our present constitutional development are, on the one hand, to be found in old Greek and Roman statecraft. Over the centuries this was elaborated on in Western Europe and elsewhere in the First World, and since 1652, and more particularly since Union in 1910, on the basis of First-World principles, norms and standards this was taken further in South Africa. This was how a First-World state was established here on the continent of Africa—the Third World.

On the other hand, for many centuries a unique political structure, based on Third-World norms and practices, developed and applied in Africa.

The challenge facing us today is to reconcile these two political structures, that of the First World and that of the Third World. In the process of constitutional development the First-World component of the population, which is by far in the minority, calls for the preservation and maintenance of First-World principles, norms and standards. If that were not the case, the constitutional development of the RSA would have been a far simpler matter, and the RSA would simply have gone the way of other African states. The Third-World component of the population, which is by far in the majority, also has recourse to First-World principles, norms and standards in its claim for more and greater constitutional rights and a greater share in the government of the country.

If, however, First-World principles, norms and standards were simply implemented in the formulation of a constitutional model for the RSA, without any adaptions having been made, owing to the numerical preponderance of the Third-World component of the population they would, of necessity, snatch control out of the hands of the First-World component of the population. As has happened everywhere in other parts of Africa, the Third-World component of the population would then revert to its Third-World norms, traditions and standards, converting South Africa into a Third-World state. The First-World component of the population, including this side of the Committee, are not in favour of that happening.

Meaningful contemplation of the constitutional development of the RSA is only possible with the recognition of these and other facts and realities of South Africa.

Unfortunately, however, some people reveal a singular ability to deny the facts that pertain. Others, again, have a variety of ways in which they perceive the facts, as if facts are fundamentally transmutable, depending on the random perceptions that people may have of them. Then there are those who try to dodge or sidestep the facts and the realities of the situation by having recourse to flights of fancy.

A striking example of these flights of fancy is the view that partition is the answer to the challenges facing us in the sphere of constitutional development.

Partition is not something invented by the CP or any other political party or group. On the contrary, as a concept it is as old as history itself. In Genesis 13, for example, we read how, when a dispute arose between their herdmen, Abraham and Lot decided to part company and divide the land up between them. Whilst Abraham remained in Canaan, Lot chose the entire Jordan region for himself and moved eastwards.

From this part of the Scriptures, however, certain important facts clearly emerge. The first is that it was possible to divide up the land because the entire country was open country. Secondly, Abraham negotiated with Lot about dividing up the land and, thirdly, there was no question of coercion whatsoever. Fourthly, Abraham gave Lot the first choice when he said: “If thou wilt take the left-hand, then I will go to the right.”

Just keep to the right! [Interjections.]

On the strength of this allow me, in all seriousness, to ask those who find partition to be the answer to the challenge facing us in the constitutional sphere, whether in their view the RSA is open to occupation by the various peoples and population groups inhabiting the country at present. Secondly, are they prepared to negotiate honestly and sincerely with the other peoples and population groups in this country on the apportionment of the RSA? Thirdly, do they believe that dividing the RSA up amongst the various peoples and population groups can take place peacefully and without coercion? Lastly they must tell me whether, in dividing up the country, they would be prepared to give the other peoples and population groups the first choice. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, like the hon member for Mossel Bay I also believe that the hon the Minister will adequately reply to all the questions put by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition. Permit me, however, to ask the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition—I almost want to say for the first, the second, the third and last time—when we are going to receive a clear, unequivocal reply, to which the voters are entitled, on his party’s relationship with the AWB? [Interjections.] It suits the hon members of the Official Opposition very well, each time a reference is made to the AWB and penetrating, relevant questions are asked about their relationship with the AWB, to counter these questions with questions about the NP and the Broederbond. That is a well-known strategy by now.

Why do you not give an answer?

That reminds me of the man who asked his friend what the similarity was between a postbox and an elephant. His friend replied that a postbox was red and that an elephant was also fairly greyish in colour. That is the closest those hon members could come to a similarity between those two organisations.

I should like to take this opportunity of focusing on another aspect of constitutional development which, in my view, is so easily neglected by both the opposition parties in this House. One cannot and may not ignore the people who live and function within the constitutional framework that is created. We must remember that we are dealing with people with desires, dreams and ideals, and alas people with faults, defects and weaknesses too. It is, however, people who go to make up the State.

Today I should like to refer to the two important fundamental characteristics of human beings, because they have important consequences for constitutional development. Firstly a human being is a social entity with a herd instinct and a desire for association. Man is an entity desiring to associate freely and to move around and share in the activities of the community at large. He is also, however, an individual being orientated towards being an individual entity, someone who also fundamentally wants to dissociate, wants to retain what is his own, who greatly cherishes what is of value to him and to those closest to him. We are dealing with what could be called, in modern terms, the two opposing principles of individuality, centering around the right to privacy, and the principle of free association, centering around participation in community activities. On the one hand there is the need to participate and, on the other, the need to be separate and to keep to oneself. One would be able to call them the principle of free association on the one hand and, on the other, the principle of free disassociation, the right to keep to oneself, but also the right to participate. Throughout the world it is a problem to reconcile these two contesting principles within one state. We cannot be permitted to ignore this, because then we are ignoring the fundamental aspect of the human beings who function within the state.

What does the principle of free association mean? We see that the Bill of Rights is aimed at granting people human dignity, granting them equality in their social intercourse and opening doors for them so that they can be themselves and realise their full potential. It is therefore a question of freedom of movement, freedom of residence, the right to participation in government, the right to free participation in economic, social and cultural activities and the right of access to education.

There is, however, also the principle of free disassociation. It is generally accepted today that everyone has the right to privacy. He has the right to personal privacy as far as his home and family are concerned. It is also widely acknowledged in law, and also in documents of the UN, that one has a right to individual education. One could quote from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which advocates the following:

There is the right to one’s own culture. One can refer to the Unesco Medium-Term Plan for 1977 to 1982 in which it is stated, amongst other things:

The dividing lines between free association and free disassociation are very difficult to address in any community, because the one can cancel out the other. The absolutising of the principle of free association cancels out the principle of free disassociation. It destroys the right to privacy. The obverse is also true. If one absolutises the principle of free disassociation, this means that the dominant group demands everything for itself. Within the South African context the one concept leads to compulsory integration and the other to blatant discrimination.

We must take note of the humanity inherent in man. We must not fail to recognise this aspect. We cannot absolutise any of these approaches in South Africa, because if one were to absolutise the right of association, in other words the right of everyone to act freely in all situations, such an approach would be experienced as an encroachment on people’s individual values, depriving them of those aspects they themselves value greatly. One would then have a feeling of an injustice having been committed, based on the fact that people would feel threatened. I would venture to say—I am addressing this to the PFP—that in the election the PFP bore the consequences of that because it absolutised the right of free association. If one were to absolutise the right of disassociation, however—and here I am addressing the Official Opposition—one would be causing offence and insulting other groups. They would experience it as a failure to recognise their human dignity. The result would be a feeling of an injustice having been committed on the grounds of people having been offended.

I want to sound a cautionary note. In this day and age we in South Africa are called upon to find a delicate balance between these two contesting principles, and we shall have to carry it through and weigh it up in every possible sphere in which society is regulated. I want to ask the Official Opposition—I am directing this at the Official Opposition—not to whip up emotions. We are dealing with people who can easily become emotional.

Some hon members of the Official Opposition have said that one can easily unleash the aggressive element in the Afrikaner. My plea is: Do not arouse irresponsibility or reckless behaviour and do not fan the flames of self-destruction through reckless conduct. Let us co-operate in leading the people of South Africa along the road towards finding one another, towards yielding to one another so as to eliminate those elements which are hurtful and also those which are threatening.

Mr Chairman, I request the privilege of the half-hour.

In the course of my speech I shall react to some of the statements made by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition and the hon members for Mossel Bay and Sundays River. As far as the hon member for Sundays River is concerned, let me just say that the distinction he drew is, in logical terms, a false one. If he equates free association with forced integration this means, in all honesty, that the hon member apparently does not understand the concept “free association”. [Interjections.] To regard a group’s right to maintain its own culture as disassociation and to contrast it with association, is a false dichotomy which is not logically justifiable. On this occasion, however, I do not have the time to go into those aspects.

I am glad the hon the Minister is out of hospital and apparently in good health. I am glad that everything went well. I think this is also the first opportunity we have had to welcome the hon the Deputy Minister of Constitutional Planning here in that capacity. On behalf of our side I want to wish him everything of the best in the really difficult task he has to perform.

If we examine the annual report of the department, we see that one of the major changes that have taken place in the past year is that of the fundamental difference in the staff position. Firstly the number of officials has been decreased from 1 720 to 445. Judging by the standards of other Government departments, this is a fundamental change which has taken place within one year in a Government department.

Secondly I am referring here to the retirement of Dr Andreas van Wyk as Director-General. It is with great regret that we took note of the fact that he was leaving the employ of the State and of this department. All of us who know Dr van Wyk, who have come to know him over the years, in his capacity as Director-General too, have the highest regard for him. It is regrettable that someone with his qualities, his integrity and intelligence, has not found it possible to remain on for a longer period and has chosen, for whatever reason, to leave the employ of the State. I regret the fact that he has gone, and can only wish him everything of the best in his future career as an academic. At the same time I sincerely want to welcome the new Director-General, Mr de Beer. I think this is also the first opportunity we have to do so. We also want to wish him everything of the best for the really difficult task he is carrying out.

In this regard I should also be neglecting my duty if I did not mention our great appreciation for the officials of the department, with whom one has regular contact, and for the astounding capabilities they display at times.

The functional rationalisation and development of the department were amongst the more fundamental changes that took place. It is completely impossible for me, in this limited time, to do justice to those changes, but of particular importance are the structural changes that took place during the past year with the establishment of the new provincial system. This is the first time we have had an opportunity to conduct a parliamentary debate on that aspect of the Appropriation. Other hon members of this party will, in the course of the debate, refer to several other aspects. I merely want to emphasise a few aspects.

I have previously referred to a large number of people who have been transferred to other departments and, in particular, to the provincial administrations. In this connection I want to say—the hon the Minister will not take it amiss of me—that it is a cause of concern to me that so many officials of the development boards have been transferred to the provincial administrations and that there they are still dealing with matters involving Black people.

Let me say at once that there were outstanding officials in the development boards, and I do not want to generalise and measure everyone by the same standards, but hon members know as well as I do that there were certain officials whose attitudes towards Black people left much to be desired. I am afraid that some of those officials have been transferred to the provincial services where they continue to deal with Black people. I do not know what the hon the Minister can do at this stage, after those people have been transferred, but it is a cause for great concern.

It is naturally of importance to us what actual functions and powers have been transferred to the provincial administrations. It appears from the Appropriation and the annual report that the functions transferred to the provincial administrations include the following: The administration of Black local authorities, the development of Black communities, dealing with problems of squatting, the issuing of permits in terms of the Group Areas Act, welfare matters involving Black people, pensions for Black people, section 24 of the Physical Planning Act, the rezoning of industrial areas, the establishment of nature conservation areas, etc.

The annual report states that provincial administrations also play the new role of the Government’s main regional development agents outside the self-governing areas. I want to state that that is conjecture, because the provincial administrations are much more than chief regional development agents. They are bodies or institutions in their own right which do, in fact, now have extensive functions or powers, and I think it was a mistake to thus fragment aspects which should be dealt with centrally and have them dealt with by the four provincial administrations.

I follow you, but I just want to make a note.

I understand that.

That problem came to the fore in the discussion about how this debate should be conducted, because we were initially given the impression that we had to deal with each of the provinces separately. Matters such as health, hospitals, roads, Black local authorities and Black affairs cannot be dealt with from a provincial point of view, and that is what I mean by fragmentation. These are matters of national scope that can only be dealt with on a national basis in a parliamentary debate such as this, matters which should, in my opinion, also be dealt with administratively on a national basis.

That applies to other aspects too. I want to mention a specific instance. A few years ago, on behalf of a national organisation—the hon the Deputy Minister will know what I am referring to—I approached the department to obtain country-wide exemption from certain provisions of the Group Areas Act. It was then possible to approach one department in that connection. If one wants to do so now, one has to approach four provincial authorities to request that the same body, in regard to a matter which is in no way problematic, be exempted from the provisions of the Group Areas Act. I could also mention other matters, but I really do believe that this fragmentation that has taken place, from one central department to the provincial administrations, was a mistake. I believe this very definitely. I am therefore glad that we have ultimately, as far as this debate is concerned, abandoned the idea that this matter should be discussed from a purely provincial point of view. I am also grateful for the fact that we can deal with this Vote—both the general Votes and the provincial Votes—as a single unit. I want to express the hope that this will be the case in the future too. I am grateful that that concession has been made, because otherwise parliamentary debates as a whole would have degenerated into a complete farce.

Let us go back for a moment and examine the overall constitutional and political spheres. Let us take stock for a moment and ascertain our present position, after the past few months and years. To a certain extent I associate myself with what the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition said.

I want to tell the hon the Minister that what I have to state here is not aimed at him personally. It actually relates to the Vote of the Minister responsible for the constitutional development in this country. I have told the hon the Minister here and elsewhere that I appreciate the really positive changes that have taken place in the past few years, the Acts that have been repealed and the other steps that have been taken.

The fundamental question that now faces us is whether we are at all closer to a solution to our political and constitutional problems. The hon the Minister has been in his present post for approximately five or six years now, I think. Are we now any closer to achieving peaceful co-existence and a substantive decrease in the conflict potential inherent in our society? That is the criterion and the question that I ask myself.

I honestly want to say there are few responsible, thinking individuals in South Africa who would say yes, we have indeed reached a stage in which the conflict potential has fundamentally decreased and in which the possibility of a peaceful society in South Africa has increased. The obverse is true, however.

What are the facts? In all the years that the hon the Minister and the Cabinet have taken us down the road of this constitutional policy, we are still saddled with a constitutional dispensation which excludes Black people from participation in the central legislative and executive structure. Over the years we have had one abortive attempt after another at solving this problem, our efforts involving what has variously been called a constellation of states, confederations, a special Cabinet committee, a forum. And now there is a national council. Over the years there has been one thing after another, and still we are left with the situation in which the overall majority of our people in South Africa are without representation in the highest legislative and executive authority. That is the cause of the conflict potential. [Interjections.]

Moreover, we have a tricameral Parliament whose structure is rejected by the majority of at least two of the participating parties’ population groups. Surely we cannot doubt that. I was surprised when the hon the State President intimated the other day that he was not prepared to accept this statement of mine, ie that the majority of the Coloureds and the Indians did not accept the tricameral system. I want to tell the hon the Minister that he should please mobilise his department in an effort to convince the hon the State President that what I believe is, in fact, correct, and that is that the majority of people from those two population groups do not accept the tricameral system.

What is more, we now have a constitutional arrangement in which a distinction is drawn between so-called general affairs and own affairs, even though we know that those own affairs are nothing more than the constitutionalisation of the apartheid policy. [Interjections.] We can argue all we want to, but that is the way things are. In speaking about people, as the hon member for Sundays River did, and about perceptions, it is not for us to say what is good or bad. We must go to those people who, to a considerable extent, experience those own affairs as being indicative of apartheid and discrimination.

Fourthly, we are still faced with a situation in which, as a result of the tricameral system, the two parties—those groups in the Coloured and Indian communities who do in fact participate—have made it clear that they are participating in the system with a view to changing it and not because they fundamentally endorse it. We are therefore actually faced with a constitutional dispensation in which even the participating parties state that their participation should not be interpreted as support for the dispensation. That is the situation in which we find ourselves.

Fifthly, the recent events involving Rev Hendrickse and the hon the State President are convincing proof of the fact that the system is indeed conflict-generating and does not resolve conflict. We have only experienced the beginning of that situation. What kind of achievement is it to have, throughout the years, created a system which I now have to describe here as being in effect, in my honest opinion, a conflict-generating one?

In the sixth place, within the framework of own affairs, and of course outside that framework too, the Government continues to cling to principles which are regarded and experienced by the majority of South Africans as being indicative of apartheid and discrimination. Mr Chairman, permit me to refer to a few examples for the sake of hon members who are still going to participate in this discussion. Let me refer, for example, to the system of local government. The hon the Minister knows that this is a tremendous source of friction and that there is large-scale rejection of it. The majority of people in the other two Houses, and the man in the street too, reject the concept of separate local authorities. Not only are we faced with the fact that this is an essential component of the governmental structure, but I am tempted to say that I cannot imagine any greater stupidity than the fact that whilst this matter is fundamentally at issue at this specific moment, we are nevertheless continuing with the establishment of Coloured management committees in Mitchells Plain, Schotsche Kloof and elsewhere. That is what is happening at this stage, even when we know that the whole system of separate local authorities is, in fact, a matter of the utmost sensitivity amongst the members of the other two Houses. It is inconceivable to me that one can be so completely cynical and insensitive as to continue, at this stage, with the further implementation and development of a system which those people are in the process of rejecting.

In the seventh instance there is the Group Areas Act, about which one of my hon colleagues will presently speak at greater length. We are also awaiting the report of the President’s Council on the Group Areas Act. The hon the State President has nevertheless stated very clearly that under no circumstances will there be any deviation from the principle of residential separation. I shall be coming back to that at a later stage. I regret that I do not have the time to give any further attention here to Proclamation No 17 of 1986. It deals with the permit system. To think that we have here a proclamation which, as far as I know, is still in existence and in which provision has to be made for the fact that in terms of the Group Areas Act the mere fact of sitting down in a restaurant is regarded as occupation! I do not even want to discuss this any further. Time does not permit me to do so in any event. Surely that is an unthinkable situation. What is more, we are also dealing with a situation in which, in terms of the 1913 Act, outside the territories set aside for them Blacks are prohibited from obtaining rights in land. It is a statutory prohibition that is involved here. In terms of the concept of controlled areas other groups—I am not even mentioning urban areas, referring as I am merely to rural areas—may not obtain rights to land either. Thus I could continue, Mr Chairman.

Be that as it may, the NP Government remains bound to certain fundamental principles regarded by those people as totally unacceptable and objectionable because for them they are synonymous with apartheid and with discrimination. We can come to light with own affairs and try to justify them, but that concept, that perception, that experience we shall never be able to eradicate as far as those people are concerned.

Let me tell the hon the Minister that as far as I am concerned it seems as if we are looking for answers to the problems, not by introducing substantive changes, but rather by way of structural changes and little formulas. That is not going to solve the problems for us. In this connection I merely want to state that if the hon the Minister speaks about broadening the democratic base, he should not blame me for saying that I do not understand what he is talking about, because that is not democracy. What we have is co-optation—the appointment of people.

If Mr Gorbachev were to appoint a member of the Slavic, Serbian or Croatian group, or a Hungarian, to the Politburo, that would not be a broadening of the democratic base—not at all. Democracy means something quite different. What the hon the Minister has tried to do these past few years does not imply a broadening of the democratic base as I understand it.

I should like to have had time to go into the whole question of the broadening of the democratic base. I want to ask the hon the Minister however, on the strength of the speech made by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition, to tell me—he can no longer avoid answering the question—whether he agrees with the fact that there are certain non-negotiables as far as the NP policy is concerned. I hear dissenting voices, for example that of the hon the Minister of National Education the other day contradicting the hon member for Stellenbosch and others, saying that those are not negotiables. I should therefore like to know the following from the hon the Minister: Firstly, does he think that race groups should be the essential element in any constitutional dispensation? Should a constitutional dispensation have racial groups as its elements, and should individuals consequently only be eligible for participation in the political system if, by forced classification, they are members of a certain race group? Now we come back to the question of voluntary association.

I also ask: Does the hon the Minister accept as non-negotiable that there cannot be voluntary political association? Does he also accept the division between general affairs and own affairs as a non-negotiable element? Does he accept that there has to be power-sharing as far as general affairs are concerned? What is more, he should reply to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition by telling us whether that means that Black people will have direct representation in this Parliament and in the executive authority or not.

Mr Chairman, I should like to refer to one or two remarks made by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in his speech. He began by referring somewhat gloatingly—I think he will concede as much—to the fact that this House cannot unilaterally change the Constitution. Typical of the style he adopts—I have no quarrel with that either—he went on to speak of “blackmailing”, “extortion” and “swallowing insults”. The hon member is thereby trying to create the impression—and is actually saying it too—that this House cannot adopt unilateral decisions about the Constitution. The hon member is correct; he is quite correct.

Hon members will recall that when, on various occasions, the CP was driven into a corner as far as its policy of partition was concerned, specifically that relating to Coloured homelands, we were told that we introduced the tricameral Parliament to hoodwink the Coloureds. Can hon members remember that? They said that their policy of partition was the just policy when it came to dividing people up, but that the NP’s policy was a fraud because the Coloureds and Indians would have no decision-making powers in a tricameral parliamentary system.

Then you hoodwinked yourselves!

Now hon members come along today and say that we cannot take decisions. Have they not proved that we managed to do what we wanted to do, ie to effect power-sharing on a just basis between Whites, Coloureds and Indians in this country?

Now you have to crawl to them! [Interjections.]

Today I want to tell that hon member that he will not know where crawling begins or ends until he has tried to implement his policy of partition. [Interjections.] He will have crawled himself to a standstill by the time he has brought one Coloured homeland into existence! The hon member will simply not be able to manage it. [Interjections.]

I should like to refer to the hon member Prof Olivier. I do not know why it is my fate always to have to speak after my professor has spoken. It is probably my fate because of my poor class attendance in the days when he was my lecturer. There is something I should like to point out to the hon member, however, since he referred to the functions transferred to the provinces. Obviously the hon member is not in favour of the devolution of authority and the decentralisation of administration. That does result in a certain degree of fragmentation, of course, and we must accept that, but the basic problem of Africa is specifically the centralisation of power in a single structure. [Interjections.] That is what we want to get away from in this country by way of the devolution of authority and the decentralisation of administration at the regional and local levels.

I should like to refer to the process of negotiation and very briefly mention certain of the factors influencing this process. Time does not permit me to go into this, but I should merely like to refer to four factors. These are factors which do, in fact, influence the developmental trend of the process of negotiation: Firstly the subject of the negotiation; secondly, the person with whom one negotiates; thirdly, the attitudes involved; and fourthly, the factor of violence. When we come to the method of negotiation in the negotiating process, however, we have a choice between negotiating behind closed doors or negotiating in public. I think that the first question we have to settle for ourselves is the way in which we are going to negotiate. I am not in favour of a completely public negotiating process. Three factors, in particular, make this undesirable in our circumstances. Firstly we have developed the bad habit of professing it to be a sin when anyone deviates from a standpoint he has adopted. He is then expected to feel ashamed at having changed his standpoint. The fewer the standpoints adopted in public, the easier the process of negotiation is.

[Inaudible.]

The second aspect delaying the overall process of negotiation, if this takes place in public, is that of creating expectations. Thirdly this process can be abused by certain bodies or organisations, the Dakar circus being a striking example of this. The hon member for Greytown is probably glad to be getting a little attention now; now he can keep quiet for a moment. [Interjections.]

As far as the second possibility is concerned, that of negotiating behind closed doors, it is important for us to know who it is who is negotiating behind those closed doors. It think it is important for one to know who it is who is negotiating behind those closed doors. [Interjections.] As a result of violence, which is a factor, some of these negotiations have to take place in camera at the moment. Hon members know that that is the case, but I am convinced that the more people we persuade to take part in the process of negotiation, the quicker there will be a sufficient number of people coming to the fore and saying that they are prepared to negotiate, declaring themselves to be in favour of negotiation and opposed to intimidation. I think that day is not far off.

As a last point I want to mention that there is also the choice between extraparliamentary negotiation and parliamentary negotiation in the development trend of the negotiating process that we shall have to examine. We on this side of the House believe that the change in regard to the participation of Black people in the political process in this country can only be brought about by this Parliament. As far as extraparliamentary action is concerned, we must distinguish between two forms. On the one hand there are those who believe that Parliament is not able to bring about change and that structures and opposition to Parliament should therefore be created with a view to destroying it, by violence if need be. We do not accept that as being correct, but it imposes a very important obligation on us as parliamentarians. As a Parliament we shall very seriously have to guard against reinforcing the perception that this Parliament is powerless to bring about change in this country. We shall searchingly have to take stock of ourselves, we shall have to examine the procedure we adopt in this House and we shall have to ask ourselves whether, in relation to other matters we discuss in this Parliament, we communicate sufficiently with one another about constitutional aspects. [Interjections.] We shall have to get down to the fundamentals of this subject. I should like to leave hon members with the following thought: Why can we not make use of our Standing Committee on Constitutional Affairs, too, to discuss constitutional aspects involving our country? We should discuss this at greater length.

Let me conclude with a statement. I have said that there are extraparliamentary groups and I have referred to one of them. There is, however, another kind of extraparliamentary group. Its members are opposed to violence and are in favour of parliamentary reform in this country. Such people and bodies have a very important role to play in this country in regard to creating the right climate, gathering information and so on. We should encourage such a group to help create the proper climate in this country.

Mr Chairman, there is just something I want to say in connection with what the hon member for Parow said. It is clear to me that he no longer knows what the concepts freedom and self-determination mean. [Interjections.] It is clear to me that he is glad to be able to say that we have restricted the freedom of the Whites in this country to such an extent that we have a dispensation in terms of which the House of Delegates, which is in a 1:4 ratio to the House of Assembly, has the same powers as this House. Recently we have specifically had evidence of this in practice. I am not surprised at the hon member for Parow’s attitude in this regard, because I think he is headed for the same destination as the hon member for Randburg. [Interjections.]

I briefly want to react to what the hon member for Mossel Bay said and tell him that he was right when he stated that in the constitutional sphere there was a struggle to reconcile First-World and Third-World elements. It appears as if the Government has found the answer to this problem to lie in the creation of a new nation in which we shall be incorporated, a new nation which offers the only basis for linkage. In that regard the Government states that we are living in an undivided South Africa with an interlinked economy, and it relies on such factors which are not in step with the reality of the spiritual rifts that exist between Third-World and First-World components. The reality of the situation is that these rifts are greater than what is said to bind us together, and that the Afrikaner people cannot become part and parcel of a so-called new nation on the basis of the factors that supposedly bind First-World and Third-World elements together. [Interjections.]

The hon member relies on the Bible for certain other statements and would have us believe that the partition we want to implement in this country is not viable because our situation is not the same as that in the example he quoted from the Bible, that of the land that was divided having been devoid of habitation before it was divided. I do not want to go into this in any depth, but I do want to tell him that the state of Israel came into being after the land of the Jews had been occupied for more than 2 000 years by others. The state of Israel came into being by a process of occupation, and with the Bible as their authority the Israelis stated that that was their god-given territory and for that reason they would occupy it. The Afrikaner people does not play second fiddle; we also have a god-given right to a part of this country and we shall occupy it. [Interjections.]

In its search for a constitutional road to travel in an undivided South Africa, the Government has accepted equal rights for all inhabitants of this country. Our reply to this is that it was a foolish choice, because it will inevitably lead to the Black majority government we have continually predicted. That was a view which hon members on that side of the House shared with us when they were perhaps more clear-sighted. We say that that is inevitable, but unfortunately they have, at present, been struck with blindness and would have difficulty returning to that course.

In their effort to escape the inevitable consequences of the numerical preponderance in such a dispensation, we and the voters of this country are made to believe that South Africa is a country of minorities and that these minorities will be protected by the Constitution. It is essential for the Government to adopt such an argument if it does not want the full effect of democracy to be felt, because the full effect of a democracy is that the majority governs. If there is a majority in this country, it will govern.

The only question that would then arise would be that of accommodating minorities. The Government’s standpoint is—this should also be seen as underlying the State President’s announcement and that of the hon the Minister in the State President’s Office—that there is no absolute majority in this country in regard to any specific group. That has become essential, because in its full-fledged operation, democracy means only one thing, and that is that that majority would govern.

The problem the Government is trying to solve in its present situation is that of the urban Black man. The Government’s policy—there are independent states and certain national states—on implementing this is that those national states are entitled to obtain their freedom and to become completely independent. Then only one problem remains—for the moment I shall not go into the additional problem sketched by the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition in regard to the broader concept—and that is the problem of the urban Black man.

According to the Government, as stated by the hon the Minister of National Education, linking the Black man to his own national states or homelands has not succeeded. He says that in the process a new group of people have come onto the scene, and he calls them the Sowetans. He says the Sowetans—ie the urban dwellers whom we find living all around the cities and towns—now have to be accommodated politically, and that is why provision has to be made for them.

We are now asking what the realities are as far as these people are concerned. The relevant figures—I am quoting what the hon the Minister in the State President’s Office said prior to the election—indicate that there are 11 million Sowetans, 5 million Whites, 3 million Coloureds and almost 1 million Indians. So what is the reality of the situation? The reality of the situation is that there is an absolute majority in this country. After all, these Sowetans are in the majority. What is to happen to them? In terms of the course adopted by the NP, the significance of these Sowetans lies in the fact that this is not a country of minorities.

This is a country with a Black majority and with a small number of Whites and other people of colour. In terms of the policy of the Government it is inevitable that those people must govern, unless one denies the existence of a democracy.

It is an irrefutable fact that in such a dispensation the majority will decide what becomes of the minorities, and the Black people are in the majority. That is morally right. There is no question about that. Morally it is the only justifiable position.

If that is the position in regard to so-called White South Africa, the position would of course be much worse if we also included the other national states and others in this process. For the implementation of its policy there is one thing the Government asks of us. It asks us…

To keep quiet.

The Whites are expected to believe that the Blacks will allow them to be divided up as the Whites see fit.

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

Mr Chairman, I merely rise to afford the hon member an opportunity to complete his speech.

I thank the hon Whip.

As I was saying, we are expected to believe that the Blacks will allow the division to take place in accordance with the desires of the Whites. If it suits the Government, it says that the Blacks are a people. If it does not suit the Government, it says the Blacks are a group, and vice versa.

What I am saying this afternoon is that the conditions which are imposed, and which we are being asked to accept, are that the Black people will accept that the authority which they have by virtue of being in the majority can be nullified. We as Whites must accept that. Only if we could be misled into accepting that the Blacks would agree to all this, and we do indeed accept it, would the Government have any chance of getting away with this story. Surely that is naïve. Surely it is naïve to think that the Blacks would simply relinquish those rights that go hand in hand with democracy. It is really far-fetched. No one with any sound common sense could think that anyone having these powers would allow them to be nullified, thus permitting himself to be hamstrung.

There are examples of this in the present situation in which the Government finds itself. There is a great deal of dissatisfaction on the other hand—in spite of the fact that the Government has its position sewn up in a Constitution—because the Government is being restricted by a minority and cannot do what it would like to do, ie call an election or postpone it. That is but a single example.

Let me mention a more apposite example. If the Blacks were to govern in this country by way of a Constitution, would they grant a veto-right to a White minority, allowing them to exercise their veto on questions of fundamental importance to the Whites in this country, ie separate schools and a separate community life? Would the Blacks agree to that? Would they grant the Whites a veto-right in regard to these matters which are of the most fundamental importance to the Whites? The answer must unquestionably be no. If it is a no, this again quite simply means that we have set off on a journey on which there are no future possibilities for the Whites in this country other than the fact that they will vanish from the scene and, of necessity, have to accept a Black majority government.

Mr Chairman, I shall come back to the hon member for Ermelo in a moment. I do not begrudge him and the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition the right to ask questions about the NP’s constitutional policy, but I also think it is only fair, on this occasion, for us to adopt certain standpoints in regard to the constitutional policies of the two opposition parties in this House.

In my opinion this is perhaps a suitable opportunity to take stock of partition. What do we know about it? What information have we obtained about partition this year?

Nothing.

Not nothing. I think there was a very dramatic turn of events in this Committee this afternoon, without many hon members actually having been aware of it. What happened, if I heard correctly, was that the hon the Leader of the right-wing radical Official Opposition did not once use the word “partition”, but he did on several occasions use the word “secession”. It seems to me that the Official Opposition has relinquished its policy of partition in favour of secession. If I am wrong, the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition may set the record straight, but what is very interesting is that he used the example of Biafra. The hon the Leader asked whether, if a group of people in South Africa asked to secede, we would bundle them into a unitary state. What does that mean? The hon the Leader of the right-wing radical Official Opposition asked the NP: If the CP or the AWB or whatever were to ask for a state for the Afrikaner people on the platteland of the Transvaal or wherever—I do not know where, perhaps Morgenzon—the NP would give its seal of approval. Sir, I think that event here today was a very important one. It would therefore seem as if the right-wing radical Official Opposition does not want to implement partition, but wants the NP to do so. The leader of that party has repeatedly asked the hon the State President and the Government to purchase more land for the establishment of the Whites’ own fatherland so that that state could secede. They do not see their way clear to doing so themselves, but are asking the NP to do so. That is the one aspect of partition we know about.

The second aspect of partition that we know about manifested itself very clearly this afternoon. I am referring to the fact that in that right-wing radical party there are tremendous differences about what partition actually means. There are elements in that party with radical standpoints. It became apparent this afternoon that those elements holding radical views have replaced partition by secession. There is no doubt about that. Those elements holding the radical views advocate the radical redistribution of land in South Africa. [Interjections.] In the work Witman, Waar is jou Tuisland?, of which the hon member for Ermelo was one of the authors, it is stated that South Africa would be considerably smaller than it is today when the White man obtains his homeland. What this amounts to, therefore, is a radical redistribution of land. In a moment I shall come to the costs involved. [Interjections.]

Something else that is advocated by these elements holding radical views, something about which there are differences of opinion in the party, is that partition or secession should entail a massive movement of Whites. On more than one occasion in this House we heard that there would be no large-scale removal of Blacks by violent means. These elements holding radical views state, and I quote: “Die volgende Groot Trek is vir die nasate van die Voortrekkers ophande, ’n trek om ’n Blanke tuisland uit die gemengde RSA te ruk, te orden en te beset.” The secession for which the Leader of the right-wing radical Official Opposition asked this afternoon would mean a massive shift of the White population. There are people in that party who advocate this. They are the authors of documents which have been published.

A further characteristic of partition is that it does not sell. That is an important characteristic of partition that we have come to know about. In his Vote the hon the State President asked the hon the Leader of the right-wing radical Opposition whether he would participate in consultations with other leaders in this country to see whether we could facilitate the further implementation of partition. What was his answer? No, he would not participate. What happened then? At their congress they appointed a commission to investigate partition. That was their reply. They appointed a commission to investigate partition. I should like to know—I have not seen this in the Press—who the chairman of this commission for the investigation of partition is. [Interjections.] Is the hon the Leader himself the chairman of this commission, or is it the hon member for Ermelo? If it is the hon member for Ermelo—he said in this House that he was not a member of the AWB, and I believe him—then let me tell hon members that we are going to see some “sports”.

A further characteristic of partition that we have come to know about this year is that the linkage element embodied in the concept of partition is dead. The hon member for Ermelo, who has just resumed his seat, says so himself in his document Witman, Waar is jou Tuisland? He says linkage is dead; it is a lie, a political lie. It would appear to me as if that linkage element has been removed from the policy of partition. That is why that policy suddenly became “secession” this afternoon, and it is going to be unilateral secession.

The next characteristic that we have come to know about partition this year is that partition must lead to the establishment of an ethnic state. It must be a “Boerestaat”, an Afrikaner state, a Morgenzon, a “droomland” if you will. I actually want to tell hon members that it is a “boomland”. [Interjections.] The hon the Leader of the right-wing radical Official Opposition referred to the same “boom” or “tree” this afternoon.

In terms of this radical redistribution of land we have repeatedly asked what it was going to cost and who would pay for it. What was the answer? We have the hon member for Overvaal’s permission to say this here. In their caucus they decided that if that question were to be asked, their answer would be that the Blacks themselves would pay for it. If the State and the taxpayers did not have the money to afford it, there would be a tree from which one would pick the money. The Blacks themselves would pay for it. [Interjections.]

The hon members said there would not be any forced removals of Black people in this country. The removals would take place “economically”. I now want to put the following question to them. As it is, the decentralisation of economic activities in this country costs us in the region of R600 million per annum. If they want to reverse the stream of Black people flocking to the cities, what is this going to cost, and who is going to pay for it? Or are the Black people themselves going to pay for it? We want to know.

The hon member for Ermelo referred to that, saying they decided who was a people and who was not. They have decided that the Coloureds are a people, to have them fit into this ethnic state, because in this “boomland”, if the Coloureds are not a people, there is always the “boom”. One simply says they are a people and then they are. This also applies to the Whites. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Sasolburg will excuse me if I do not interfere in the argument he had with the CP. I have no intention of getting involved in the arguments of these two rightist radical parties.

I too welcome the hon the Minister back from hospital. I hope that he was not suffering from high blood pressure, because I do not think my speech is going to do his blood pressure that much good.

I want to start with the proposition that never in the history of our country has so much money been spent by one Minister with so little beneficial result; indeed, with so many adverse results. When I look at this very expensive tricameral Parliament; when I look at the regional services councils; when I look at the racist local authorities scattered throughout this country; when I look at the multiplicity of Cabinet Ministers, members of Parliament, officials and departments, I realise only too well that a tremendous amount of the taxpayers’ money is being spent in pursuit of a dream which is impossible to fulfil.

There are many other aspects that one must look at when talking about this, one of which is the amount of money being spent on the independent homelands. This House should be aware that the President of the Ciskei, Chief Lennox Sebe, recently passed an Act to condone retrospectively the spending of R4,3 million worth of public funds. This resulted from an application in the Ciskei Supreme Court to investigate the chief’s alleged misappropriation of funds. The allegations were made by Mr Mocomo, who stated that Chief Sebe had used public funds to improve his private home and farm and to buy furniture and fittings for them. If these allegations were true, the South African taxpayer has had his funds wasted.

As this is an independent country there is little we can do about the matter, but I am concerned that the same sort of practices are occurring within South Africa; in which case we certainly can and should do something about it. Let me explain what I mean.

Earlier this year I asked the hon the Minister some questions in connection with the Ibhayi Town Council—that is in Port Elizabeth. One of these questions was whether the town councillors or mayors received any housing or transport benefits; and if so, what benefits. The answer to this question was “none”.

Furthermore, I asked the question as to whether town councils received any loans to build houses and again I received the answer that no loans were granted.

These questions and answers were reported in the Press and as a result thereof I was visited by a person who stated that he believed that the answer given to me was not correct and he then produced evidence to support his contention which I found very convincing. He also produced other evidence relating to a considerable degree of malpractice within the Ibhayi Town Council.

I do not intend to go further into these other allegations, but I wish to advise the hon the Minister that I have forwarded copies of all the evidence to the Advocate-General in Pretoria for his further investigation.

The documentation in relation to housing relates to the fact that a fairly considerable sum of money was allocated to the Ibhayi Town Council for job creation. It is alleged that R268 000 of this money was spent on houses for city councillors. I also have a document which is the recommendation of the executive committee of the council on 26 August 1986 in relation to the erection of nine house at KwaMagxaki. This recommendation was that quotations be called for for nine houses. The first recommendation reads as follows:

1. (1) The monthly rental and instalment payment on the capital amount of R33 330 will be as follows:
   1. (i) Rental per month R4,24
   2. (ii) Monthly instalment if purchased Over 20 years R352 per month Over 25 years R335 per month Over 30 years R325 per month

Let me also quote paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d):

1. (a) During April 1986 Councillor Ncama’s house was completely destroyed by fire caused by a petrol bomb;
2. (b) Council had no option but to provide hotel accommodation for Councillor Ncama, because at that time Councillor Petela occupied the guest house;
3. (c) The hon the Minister from the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning requested that alternative accommodation be offered to Councillor Ncama;
4. (d) The hon the Minister advised that it is placing him in a very embarrassing position in Parliament.

The final recommendation was:

It would thus appear that the hon the Minister was advised of the situation and it would be somewhat surprising if he then did not know that money had been spent on providing these nine houses.

If the allegations are correct, a monthly rental of R4,24 for a house worth R33 000 is certainly subsidisation of housing for councillors on a massive scale, and the answer supplied by the hon the Minister in this House was not correct.

Regrettably, the matter does not end there. I understand that the allegations which I have reported today together with the allegations of malpractice which were forwarded by me to the Advocate-General were reported to the Minister’s department at an earlier stage. I am told that they were in fact reported to a Mr Ron Delport at the Directorate of Local Government. Despite this, I understand that no further action had been taken. One can only speculate as to the reason for this. Patently, these racialistic councils created by the hon the Minister which are in no way representative of the people they are supposed to represent, have to be seen to be working. If there is corruption and this becomes public, the whole system becomes discounted. This would obviously be an embarrassment to the hon the Minister.

As I have said, this can only be speculation. However, I would like the hon the Minister in his reply to confirm or deny that various matters were raised with the Directorate of Local Government in regard to malpractices at the Ibhayi Town Council and, if it is true, to tell us what action has resulted.

It would appear prima facie that there has been a wasting of taxpayers’ funds to quite a considerable extent, and I think the hon the Minister owes the taxpayers of this country an answer to this question.

I should like to return now to the speech of the hon member for Parow who spoke at some length about negotiation and the devolution of power. If the hon member believes that the devolution of power is taking place in the hon the Minister’s department, I believe he is not looking at the reality of the situation. Let us look at the devolution of power.

We are aware that the provincial councils were elected bodies—not particularly democratically elected because only Whites were able to elect them—but we can say that they were democratically elected by the Whites. They represented the people of the province and the councils ran those provinces to a fair degree.

Then along comes this hon Minister and does away with those provincial councils. What is more, he replaces the members of the executive committees of those provinces with people whom he appoints. They are not people appointed by the people of the province themselves. The net result in Natal was the most glaring example of this. Natal is a province that had previously been under the control of the NRP, and all the members of the executive committee were members of the NRP. Under the new dispensation not one of those people was reappointed to an executive position in Natal. [Interjections.]

This is not devolution of power; it is precisely the opposite. It is the concentration of power in the hands of one man—this hon Minister.

Yes, one man, one vote! [Interjections.]

I believe that can be demonstrated clearly in every aspect, including the regional services councils.

Are the people of the region responsible for the election of the chairman of a regional services council? Of course they are not. Those chairmen are appointed by central Government in Pretoria, which, therefore, is centralisation of power and not devolution of power. [Interjections.] That centralisation of power in Pretoria means that the chairman of every single regional services council in this country is responsible to Pretoria for his job. If he displeases the central Government, maybe he will be given a job like Ambassador to Venda or some other job within the political system. He will be taken out of his position as chairman of an RSC, which is a very worthwhile position in terms of remuneration. [Interjections.]

Where is the negotiation?

For years this hon Minister has been talking about negotiation but unfortunately they cannot, he says, disclose with whom they are negotiating, or what they are negotiating about. Year after year there is still no negotiation. I appeal to the hon the Minister to let us know about it. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I do not want to react to the speech by the hon member for Port Elizabeth Central which dealt mainly with urban and Black councils. However, the allegations the hon member made regarding the so-called centralisation of power in the regional services councils are, I think, completely misleading; otherwise the hon member does not understand. The composition of RSCs represents a decentralisation of power in that they consist of members appointed to those councils from elected local authorities.

He made a point about the chairman. As he knows, the chairman has no vote and is therefore an impartial member.

He still has to be remunerated.

He can influence and lead, but he is not in a position to impose policy on the RSC.

*The one pleasing feature of the whole debate on South Africa’s politics is that people are having extensive discussions about the future nature of our society rather than harping on its present shortcomings. I am not referring specifically to this debate, but listening to the hon members for Waterberg and Ermelo carrying on, one might think we were stuck with this old clock which has stopped at one o’clock, at the present shortcomings.

Negotiation is the fundamental premise in the process of developing the new society. What we need is the kind of negotiation this hon Minister has been conducting tirelessly, each and every day of the week, and any hour of the day or night. We do not need the one-sided, all-powerful dominating style we find among the right-wing opposition, nor the immature confrontational boycotting and spiteful style we find in the ranks of the extra-parliamentary left-wing groups.

A number of groups and people in this country differ on the mechanisms, procedure, priorities and the participants in this process of negotiation. We all agree, however, that decisions about the future of the country’s political and economic structure are not a matter for the Whites alone. All groups in the country must accept that many White leaders, especially in the right-wing spectrum of our politics, have been conditioned through the years to regard White authority as being sacrosanct. We must accept that there are many White leaders who have not yet adapted to the understanding that authority and leadership in the new South Africa demand a new style, a style based on initiative, intellectual ability and leadership, a style that can expertly control the centrifugal forces of the constant potential for conflict in our country.

We listened to the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition this afternoon. He used words such as: “Is the hon the State President going to swallow the insult of Rev Hen-drickse?” That is the kind of language he uses. On a prior occasion he said the CP “would not stand for” certain things.

Correct!

This kind of language is indicative of a style which can have no meaning in the new South Africa if we are to take our seats around the conference table to work out a future dispensation.

Unfortunately this new style and these new capabilities are not learnt in a day or two, nor are they learnt from circulars and documents or in morning seminars. It is a harsh fact that not just anyone can be a negotiator. [Interjections.] I should like to know from the hon the Minister whether the climate and leadership potential exist in the country today to augment the existing possibilities for meaningful negotiation and meaningful agreement. Does the climate for extending these possibilities exist?

There is reason for confidence and optimism on this side of the Committee, because we have the experience of the hon the Minister at our disposal, and most constitutional structures with which we are governing this country today are the product of the hon the Minister’s initiative and the lead he has taken in negotiations.

The question that arises is whether the time has come for moderate Black leaders palpably to take a stand. The climate and the atmosphere in the country do not depend only on White leadership, but also on the Black leaders. The negotiation scenario and the possibility of success also require the injection of Black political culture. The task of retaining confidence within a fragmented community such as South Africa’s is difficult enough as it is. One must ask oneself why the pressure is being applied only to the White negotiators. Why and on what basis are extra-parliamentary groups with their intra-parliamentary supporters constantly being permitted to discredit the NP Government, whereas the standpoints of the ANC and some of its cohorts are being given untrammeled support abroad? As far as the prospects for nationalisation are concerned—despite Press censorship—the rest of Africa is there to make a mockery of the so-called noble-minded advice given to us by the left-wing liberal intelligentsia from a safe distance abroad. Black participation in this country is being inhibited by, inter alia, a number of internal political conditions, both past and present, and we must acknowledge that. Unfortunately, however, the utopia presented by many of the internal Opposition Press and the left-wing political groups does not contribute to the creation of a climate for negotiation.

We on this side of the Committee want to tell the hon the Minister that if the NP wants to confuse its supporters, it must look over its right shoulder at the hon members on the opposite side of the Committee. No compromise with the Conservative opposition is possible. [Interjections.] The philosophy of this side of the Committee differs too fundamentally from that of the CP, HNP and AWB alliance for any compromise to be achieved.

Hear, hear!

The more clearly the NP reveals its policy, the more powerfully they will crack down on the CP. When we listen to the hon members’ rhetoric, we are tempted to conclude that the right-wing politicians and their leaders are tortoises in public service.

Now you are trying to elicit a response from the PFP!

Mr Chairman, I do not intend opening my speech by referring to those of the hon member for Sasolburg or the hon member for Caledon as I am afraid I may fritter away too much time on the speeches of these two hon members which actually produced nothing new as to content. Their speeches were actually very superficial. [Interjections.]

I shall proceed directly to an aspect which came up in a speech by the hon the Minister of Finance in this House on 22 June 1987. I want to do this because it has obviously become fashionable among certain hon members on the other side of the House, when replies to certain questions are not given directly or in the same session, to refer to them later with great fanfare, the implication being that no answers to those questions exist. The relevant portion of the Constitution to which I wish to refer reads as follows:

Section 2 of the Constitution provides that the people of the Republic of South Africa acknowledge the sovereignty and guidance of Almighty God.

The CP voted against it!

The question as to how the Government was dealing with the application of these provisions in the Constitution was raised in this House by the hon the Minister. I shall quote him:

I then asked the hon the Minister, by way of an interjection, how one reconciled this view with the preamble to the Constitution. I should first point out that I established that only the last three words of the prayer, “Jesus Christ. Amen” were usually omitted from the prescribed prayer in the House of Delegates. On occasion, when the former Speaker opened proceedings there, he actually read the entire prayer.

In the second place I want to state clearly that my question is very simple: If one includes a preamble to one’s Constitution in which one acknowledges Almighty God and sets the maintenance of Christian values as a goal, how can one omit the name of Christ from the prayer of one of the Houses of this Parliament? In addition, how can one justify such an omission? [Interjections.] Mr Chairman, I wonder if one should make any deduction from all the comments being made while I am putting these questions?

Furthermore I wish to ask how one can justify such an omission with the argument that there is a minority of Christians in the House concerned. Today I want to tell that hon Minister, and anybody else of the same opinion as he, that anyone who truly believes in the Almighty God Jesus Christ and acknowledges in his Constitution that he wishes to maintain His values, does not negotiate on the desirability of using His holy name in the Parliament of this country, least of all on the basis of the numerical strength of His followers in any of the Houses of this Parliament. Hon members who are not His followers and whose religion does not permit them to mention His name should retain the right to remain absent during the official prayer. That is religious tolerance and religious freedom. [Interjections.]

I took a further look at the hon the Minister’s speech, and I must comment that at times, when he was dealing with the CP, I found it one of the most malicious speeches made during this session of Parliament. In the process the hon the Minister even uttered blatant untruths. He alleged, inter alia, that the CP state would be a partitioned “Boerestaat”. Anybody who took the trouble to ascertain the truth would know that the idea of a “Boerestaat” is not CP policy, but in fact partition, in terms of which the White nation of South Africa—just like the other nations—would obtain an own state within which its members would govern themselves fully and exclusively.

After 1975 the same hon Minister who is now attacking the CP so viciously on partition—his colleagues who so readily join in the chorus on this subject would do well to join him in listening to this—drew up an election pamphlet together with the hon the Leader of the House. The title is in bold print: “Die Nasionale Party staan vas by sy beginsels.” They then list the political principles of the NP under this title with a short explanation alongside it. The first principle reads:

The second principle is as follows:

We need go no further as the implications are clear. If this hon Minister would look at this explanation quite honestly and objectively, at what he and the hon the Leader of the House were still advocating to the electorate of this country after 1975, the implication is that if one now makes power-sharing one’s policy, one is rejecting peoples’ right to self-determination. If one accepts integration and rejects separate development, one is rejecting the maintenance of the identity of one’s people. [Interjections.]

This is the hon Minister who attacks the CP in this House on its partition policy as if he had never heard of it and as if he had never been an active proponent of the principles of that very policy. The irony of it all is that the same page closes with the following words:

This is ironical, Mr Chairman.

This hon Minister and his colleagues accept integration today; power-sharing is their policy, so it is no wonder that this hon Minister, in particular, is creating such a furore against the CP. I wonder whether his conscience does not bother him. Against the background of the hon the Minister’s explanation, I want to say his party’s political principles are not worth the paper on which they are printed. [Interjections.]

We recently had another telling example of this party’s unreliability in the past election. During the election it was this very hon Minister—this is ironic too—who sent me a policy document by post in which certain questions and answers were set out. The title of this pamphlet is “NP Policy: The Facts!” On page 4 the basic rules of the NP constitutional campaign are set out. One of them reads as follows:

- protection of an own community life in own schools and residential areas.

On page 6 the following question appears:

If, however, we put questions in this House on the maintenance of the Group Areas Act, we receive all kinds of evasive answers. The hon the Deputy Minister of Development Planning merely says the matter is receiving continuous attention. On another occasion the hon the Deputy Minister of Information said the number of those of colour living illegally in the White areas of Hillbrow and Mayfair was unknown and impossible to establish. I then asked him what methods the Government had adopted to ascertain these numbers and he replied that this had to appear on the question paper as a separate question before he would answer it. This is how they evade questions. Fortunately I have just received a more positive reply from the hon the Minister of Justice. It appears from his written reply that in the period from 1 January to 31 July 1987 only a single criminal case in terms of the provisions of the Group Areas Act was heard in the lower courts throughout the Republic and that no eviction orders were issued against any offenders during this period. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I could not follow the initial run-up to the hon member for Roodepoort’s arguments very well, but it sounded particularly as if we were engaged in arguing the entire debate on the Constitution all over again. If I understood him correctly, he was insinuating that we on this side of the House belied the name of Christ in the decisions we took about the Constitution because the specific words “Jesus Christ” are omitted when the House of Delegates opens with prayers. That was his argument, if my interpretation is correct. I wish to say something about this. In the first place it was under the leadership of this side of the House that we stated, in the preamble to the Constitution, that we wished to uphold Christian values and civilised norms. It is accepted practice in South Africa…

You should have listened more carefully.

… that Christian holidays are recognised by the State, for instance. Nevertheless let us concentrate specifically on the hon member’s argument that the House of Delegates should be opened in the name of Jesus Christ. Sir, do you know what worried me when sitting in court? I was concerned that somebody who was not a follower of the Christian faith, or a person who did not even follow Judaism or the Islamic faith, would suddenly take the oath in the name of Somebody he had no knowledge of at all.

That is unnecessary!

The argument I wish to put forward…

He is permitted an affirmation in lieu of an oath.

Sir, I am far from being a famous theologian, but one should be careful not to break the third Commandment which forbids using the name of the Lord in vain by quoting the name of Christ in a House in which, to my knowledge, only one Christian has a seat and the overwhelming majority deny the name of Christ, because if that name has no significance, there is no sense in opening such a gathering in the name of Christ, for the sake of show or for whatever other reason. That is my argument, and the hon member for Brits and other theologians in this House are free to differ with me on this.

I have said this here previously and I wish to repeat it. We should really not start peddling the Christian religion, trying to sell it to one another, with one presenting his Christianity in a more elevated light than the other. We should strip such arguments from the debate as they serve no purpose. [Interjections.]

Tell that to your own people!

I shall do so.

Are you peddling it in the Constitution?

Sir, we are not peddling it in the Constitution, but we are not using it to canvass votes in constituencies either. We do not tell the electorate that the name of Christ is denied in Parliament. I had to travel to Cape Town to fetch the opening prayer to show people that CP canvassers had told them a lot of nonsense.

Shame!

The CP is on record as saying that its policy is not one of separate development.

A few years ago you believed in partition as much as I did!

No, Sir, I did not believe in partition. [Interjections.]

Order! No, I shall not permit this discussion across the floor of the House.

The CP is on record as saying that its policy is not one of separate development. The hon member for Ermelo said separate development meant separate political structures in the same area, and later the hon member for Ermelo said, in an interview with a newspaper, that it was NP policy. He said the CP policy, in contrast, was not a policy of separate development, but one of partition. This obviously gives the lie to the accusation that the NP has now deviated from separate development, but let us leave it at that.

The CP claims its policy is one of partition. The irony of it all is that when the CP had its first opportunity of testing partition against practical demands, it flinched from doing so. I am referring to the hon the State President’s invitation to the CP to join the Government at a round-table conference and negotiating with Black people on the division of the country. They flinched from doing so and said they did not negotiate on Whites’ right to self-determination. If one made this White right to self-determination conditional upon the removal of Black people, however, it is only logical that one would have to negotiate with Black people on this removal. Nevertheless when the CP had that opportunity, it shied away from it completely.

I think the CP dilemma is that it wants to use partition to avoid power-sharing, whereas partition actually implies power-sharing with minority groups. I want to repeat this statement. The CP does not want to negotiate on the implementation of partition because it wishes to use partition to avoid power-sharing, whereas power-sharing with minority groups is a condition of partition. In all three places where partition has been implemented up to this point… [Interjections.]

The hon member for Overvaal undoubtedly said they did not stand for absolute partition. This means that minority groups will remain in every partitioned area and, after one has applied partition, one cannot disenfranchise these minority groups; this has not been done anywhere in the world. One can only consent to partition if one guarantees the political rights of these minority groups.

Why did you first break away with us and then go back? [Interjections.]

Please let me complete my argument. [Interjections.] The CP wants to spend millions of rands on moving millions of people, only to be landed ultimately in the same position in which we are now, and that is that one will still be left with Black people in a partitioned state forming a minority without political rights. The hon member for Losberg’s solution is that one should regard these people as aliens. At some time or other this year he wrote an article in Die Patriot in which he said that once one had applied partition and created a preponderantly White state, one could declare other people to be aliens. Those aliens do not have the same rights as the citizens of the state. My question now is: Hoe does one declare people born in a specific state, who work and live there, to be aliens? The hon member for Losberg is correct in wishing to declare migrant labourers aliens. That I accept, but in terms of what principle of international law does one declare a person who was born in the country, and lives and works there, to be an alien? [Interjections.] That is the overall dilemma. Millions of rands will be spent and millions of people moved without solving the problem.

[Inaudible.]

I cannot quite catch what the hon member for Soutpansberg is saying.

Order! The hon member Dr Geldenhuys should not be catching what the hon member for Soutpansberg is saying. [Interjections.] The hon member may proceed.

The solution is obvious. In the South African situation, which in any case was not of our choice, power-sharing without domination must be implemented. Now the CP is asking how it should be done.

You tell us.

We have developed the model of regional services councils at the third tier of government. Surely it is a fact that one has developed a decision-making process which eliminates domination within the framework of regional services councils. [Interjections.] I do not claim it is a perfect model but it is a model according to which a decision-making process has been developed which eliminates domination.

It is just as well that you went back to the NP.

Order! The hon member for Overvaal is making too many interjections.

I myself am pleased that I am not sitting among those hon members. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, this has been an interesting debate which has taken place in the discussion of the Constitutional Development and Planning Vote. I had hoped that we would be given an explanation of what the NP envisaged, since they made such a fuss about everything they intended doing on the way to reform. Instead of this, every hon member of the NP who stood up here attacked us and did not reply to questions put to them when they were cornered, either from the side of the Official Opposition or of the PFP. [Interjections.] This happens whenever they are driven into a corner; they attack instead of telling us where they are heading with the country.

On this occasion I wish to discuss another matter, that of a practicable constitutional dispensation for South Africa. I want to start by saying that such a dispensation should satisfy at least two requirements to be able to succeed. It must be morally justifiable and should take the realities of our situation into account. [Interjections.]

I shall explain to hon members who are making interjections what I mean by this. Every policy which does not comply with these two requirements is doomed to failure. The moral basis for a constitutional policy must rest on two pillars. It should afford just treatment to all who are affected by it and should be applied honestly to all who are involved. [Interjections.] A policy…

Order! Far too many interjections are being made. The debate cannot proceed in this way. I appeal to hon members to limit their interjections. The hon member may proceed.

Mr Chairman, an unjust policy and one which is not presented honestly to the electorate and applied honestly cannot prove to be the salvation of any people in this country. People may be deprived of their rights temporarily and be subjected to an unjust dispensation for a time, but ultimately injustice cannot work. People can be deceived for a time and led to believe that one has plans for them other than the cards one has put on the table, but eventually the truth will out, and then a high price has to be paid.

Justice and honesty are important requirements for a workable and practicable constitutional dispensation for South Africa.

A master-and- servant dispensation.

The CP is often accused of having no moral basis to its policy of partition. [Interjections.] We are accused, as the hon member on the other side is saying, of begrudging other people everything, of selfishly demanding everything for ourselves and of advocating a policy built on hatred.

[Inaudible.]

The CP repudiates these allegations, such as the one just made by the hon member for Caledon on that side. It is people who are devoid of political arguments who have to resort to such slanderous statements. This afternoon we claim with conviction that our ethnic policy is in complete accord with the Biblical injunction: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. [Interjections.]

We demand the freedom of our people, but we do not claim it at the expense of other peoples; we exact it with justice toward other peoples. When it comes to justice, the CP does not concede an inch to any other political party in South Africa.

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

No, Sir, I should like to put my case.

Perhaps it is necessary for us to remind one another again of the true meaning of justice or equity. There are people whose point of departure is that everything belongs to everybody. Applied to the South African political situation, it is then argued that the RSA belongs to everyone living within its borders at the moment. Chief Buthelezi and his Zulus have just as much right to the Western Cape as the people who have lived here for generations. Whites have just as much right to KwaZulu as the Zulus whose lawful property it is. Justice means that everything belongs to everyone. In the Utopian unitary state which is to be created, all assets and resources have to be pooled and divided equitably according to numbers and not according to entitlement.

That is certainly not what justice means. Surely justice means that a person gives everyone what he is entitled to, what belongs to him and is his. [Interjections.] The CP must not be accused again of not being prepared to reach out a helping hand to other peoples in this country.

The hon the Leader of the Official Opposition again corrected that allegation here this afternoon. If we are more privileged than other peoples, we are prepared to help, but then it will be to the extent that it is possible for us as a people, as we ourselves decide and not as we are prescribed to from within the context of a unitary state. [Interjections.] Then the point at issue is not justice or equity, but whether we, as a more privileged people, have any regard for the distress of other peoples. [Interjections.]

I also wish to say something about honesty as the second pillar of a morally justifiable constitutional dispensation. “Reform by stealth”, whoever may claim this policy, is not morally justified. [Interjections.] Whites should be told directly and honestly what course is being taken with them. Vague assurances are not good enough. Their good faith and their confidence in our leaders dare not be abused. They should know whether Blacks will ultimately have seats in this Parliament and whether they will eventually have the final say when consensus cannot be reached on important matters. They must know, because they must choose whether they are prepared to sign away their freedom and that of their children. The ultimate goal of reform dare not be concealed from them when steps are being implemented which will ultimately lead to the loss of their freedom.

If there is one people which will not tolerate such action, which will wreak vengeance on those who have misled it, I can assure the Committee this afternoon it is the Afrikaner. I want to add—this is equally important—that the other peoples in this country are also entitled to honesty in this regard. The Government should spell out to them what is really meant by power-sharing. Does it mean that dialogue will be entered into with them, that they will be listened to and that they will have the opportunity of voicing their grievances, but that the final decision will always remain in White hands when consensus is impossible? [Interjections.] Does it mean that apartheid legislation will be sacrificed but that they will always have to play second fiddle when it comes to real political decision-making because Whites will always have to take the final decision in the absence of consensus? [Interjections.] They have to know this, Mr Chairman, because they have to decide whether they are prepared to embark upon such a dispensation in conjunction with the Whites.

Next I should like to pause briefly at a second important requirement, which is that the realities of South Africa should also be recognised and correctly evaluated. The NP will grant us this, but the difference between ourselves and them comes down to the fact that they have tunnel vision when it comes to certain realities, neither wanting nor being able to recognise the most significant reality in the South African situation. That is the truth of the matter. We admit it. The peoples living in South Africa are largely interlinked at present. It will not be easy to disentangle them fully on a geographic basis, but it is not a prerequisite to disentangle them politically in the interim.

The NP takes cognisance of only one reality in South Africa which is the interrelatedness of our ethnic situation. There are nevertheless other realities in South Africa too. South Africa is not a country of minorities, as the NP likes to claim. South Africa is a country which accommodates a diversity of peoples. [Interjections.] That diversity of peoples has different types of ethnic nationalism, different habits and customs and even different preferences in forms of government. Whoever ignores or disregards this, is ignoring the most significant reality facing us in this country. When it really comes to the pinch, these realities will be decisive for South Africa, and it will be a sad day if no provision has been made for them in a constitutional dispensation.

Permit me to say here today, Mr Chairman, that there are at least two peoples in this country who will not submit to any other; they are the Whites and the Zulus. We do not hold this against the Zulus; we do not begrudge them their desire to be ruled by their own people. As far as we are concerned, they could actually have assumed full independence long ago. We like Chief Buthelezi’s nationalism, but we also want to tell him in all sincerity that we shall not tolerate his imperialism which desires to place the whole of South Africa, including the Whites, under the Zulu heel. [Time expired.]

Mr Chairman, I am very pleased to follow up on what the hon member for Brits said. When he began to speak, I thought we were about to witness yet another breakaway. He spoke like an independent CP member by waxing lyrical, inter alia, about the issues of justice, honesty and interpreting the realities of the day. I thought we were listening to a man with a vision in life.

I should just like to put one or two points to the hon member. He made such lofty statements about honesty—one should not begrudge others what one claims for oneself. The hon member conceded as much. Would he not concede that if one is unable to give others what one claims for oneself, one should be prepared to share with others who have less than oneself? By the same token, if one lays claim to the franchise in one’s own fatherland, on what morally justifiable grounds may one withhold that right from members of other population groups who also have a birthright in that fatherland? The hon member also spoke about honesty.

Can it be the NP that is saying these things? [Interjections.]

You know, Mr Chairman, the hon member for Holberg…

Overvaal!

… Overvaal—“Over de Vaal”—is being extremely witty again today. [Interjections.]

During the election one of the CP candidates in Jan Kempdorp, a certain Mr Jan Hoon—I understand he was previously an hon member of this House—said, inter alia, that his party would appoint a constitutional development committee of its own, consisting of Prof Carel Boshoff and Mr Eugene Terre’Blanche, to identify a specific territory for the White Afrikaners. I shall leave out a section of his speech and merely quote the following. This is their brand of honesty for you. He said:

I now want to come to the subject of consensus. There are a few lawyers and scholars, and even an emeritus professor—a former professor of law—within the ranks of that party. [Interjections.]

Pharisees!

Yet they still say “to hell with consensus…”

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Is it permissible for hon members on this side of the House to be referred to as Pharisees?

Order! I did not hear that. Which hon member said it?

Mr Chairman, it was that hon member on the opposite side of the House.

Order! Did the hon member for East London North make that remark?

I withdraw it, Mr Chairman.

Mr Chairman, on a further point of order: May an hon member refer to hon members on this side of the House as publicans (tollenaars)?

Order! If hon members continue to refer these matters to the Chair, it will shortly be swamped with them. This must cease at once. The hon member for Bloemfontein North may continue.

Mr Chairman, what is your ruling on my point of order?

Order! I have given my ruling and the hon member may proceed.

The NP as a whole are nothing but publicans! [Interjections.]

Order! The hon member for Bloemfontein North may continue.

Mr Chairman, in the short time which now remains after all the dialogue, I just want to refer briefly to… [Interjections.]

Order! There is far too much chattering going on, and I shall name hon members if this continues. The hon member may proceed.

I should just like to refer to the similarities between the left-wing and right-wing radical philosophies. The general conception of the party-political arena is that it may broadly be regarded as comprising three groups, namely a left-wing, a right-wing and a middle group. The political arena is viewed as a horizontal line with the left and right wings at opposite poles and the moderates in the middle. That is a totally incorrect view. The correct view of the party-political arena may actually be represented in the form of a horseshoe with the moderate groups positioned at top centre of the horseshoe and the right-wing and left-wing groups respectively on opposite sides at the bottom. As one moves further down this horseshoe, one eventually arrives at a situation in which the right-wing and left-wing ideologies actually meet.

The area of individual responsibility is most prevalent in the moderate element at the top of the horseshoe. As one moves further down to the left or the right, individual responsibility diminishes. It first decreases slightly, diminishes even further and then disappears, ultimately culminating in either a right-wing or left-wing power clique. What the moderate element with regard to the NP amounts to is the fact that it is pursuing a policy based on the devolution of power in terms of which the base of democracy is being broadened and a greater degree of individual involvement is emerging.

Some people take a distorted view of moderation. What is meant by moderation is that things take place in accordance with certain specified norms. It therefore represents a normative definition and a normative statement of one’s view of reality. There is also a certain amount of tension within the moderate group, but once this tension causes one to become weak-kneed, no progress is made, and that is what is happening. However, when this tension keeps one on one’s toes, this ultimately results in the vital dynamics which bring about change. At the same time, excessive unanimity causes things to grind to a halt. This is something that cannot be tolerated at the present juncture.

Two false perceptions exist among the ultraleftwing and ultra-rightwing groups which are clouding the thinking of many people. To the right, we find fear and to the left, hatred. The revolutionary onslaught on South Africa is promoting disinformation and reinforcing these thought patterns.

As far as negotiation politics is concerned, it is an acknowledged fact that various groups exist, each with its own individual rights. The existence of those rights is even acknowledged by the UNO, the ANC and the USA—specifically by way of Rule 23 of their Federal Rules of the law of civil procedure. The key question in South Africa is therefore how, inter alia, the legal interests of the ethnic groups are to be incorporated into one public legal order. That is what the NP received a mandate to do during the last election, and that is what it is going to strive for in the future.

In conclusion, I just want to indicate how these various groups are defined. Some of the elements that are of assistance in the definition of groups are, inter alia, their history, fatherland, language and religion. However, these are only a few of the elements, because the most important characteristic of a people is to be found in its typically individual cultural style. A people’s way of doing things and its behaviour patterns are definitive, and what is remarkable is that this formation of a cultural style is inextricably linked to other entities in society such as the church, school and so on. It is an indisputable fact that these various groups and peoples in South Africa will only be able to solve their problems by way of negotiation.

Mr Chairman, I should like to begin by thanking hon members for their contributions to the debate thus far. I want to say at once that I agree with the hon the Leader of the Official Opposition that this discussion is a very important one. I say this because this House is the one which will debate the constitutional process at the greatest length. This being so, it may be expected of this House, in view of its exposure to the democratic processes, to give some direction in debating the future of the country.

The debate we have held today, and which will continue over the next three days, will have a material bearing on the determination of our ability to lead the country and to bring about orderly and meaningful change in South Africa. I therefore welcome the debate for two reasons. The first is that it offers all hon members an opportunity to call my hon Deputy Ministers and myself to account for the way in which we have managed the responsibilities of this Ministry and department during the past year. Secondly it gives us, in turn, an opportunity to formulate and to state our own standpoints in this specific regard.

I should like to begin by adopting a personal standpoint, namely that both politically and personally speaking, I have one great ideal for my country and its people. That ideal is to make as large a contribution as possible to the removal and adjustment of all measures which discriminate against people or groups. It makes no difference whether the discrimination is due to the nature or the application of a particular measure. I want to say at once that notwithstanding their individual standpoints, all hon members on the opposite side of the House share my standpoint regarding the removal of discrimination. Basically, that is the only respect in which we differ. [Interjections.] The hon member for Roodepoort differs with me.

It is the generalisation I object to!

The hon member’s reaction would therefore seem to indicate that he is prepared to accept discrimination. In that case, I submit that the standpoint he has just expressed by way of interjection is in direct conflict with both the standpoint of the hon member for Brits, who advocated justice, and that expressed by his hon leader this afternoon.

Furthermore, I want to say immediately that what I am striving for, is to be instrumental, together with all other hon members, in the scrapping of those measures and laws which, by definition, are prejudicial to other people and groups. My party is committed to doing that. If we in this House cannot succeed in doing so, we shall not reduce conflict, but increase it. Let us be honest with one another and admit that there are, in fact, certain measures which discriminate…

Such as the Group Areas Act?

… and that is the truth, is it not. Surely we need not blame one another for that.

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

No, please, I just want to finalise this point. It is a simple fact that certain discriminatory measures exist.

Such as the Group Areas Act?

Sir, if the Group Areas Act is discriminatory in its application, the application should be done away with.

Is the Act as such discriminatory? [Interjections.]

As a final remark this afternoon I want to say that it is not enough for us to commit ourselves to the removal of discriminatory measures in this country. It is not even enough that we should desire to remove such measures from the Statute Book, Sir. What is just as necessary, and this is what I am advocating in the debate we are jointly conducting here, is that people change their attitudes to one another; that they get to know one another.

I want to say today that if we cannot heighten the awareness of the people of this country, if that awareness cannot lead to understanding, and if that understanding cannot lead to sympathetic tolerance, this country does not have any hope whatsoever of developing a democratic model. We shall have to get to know one another. We shall have to learn to tolerate one another. We shall have to learn to understand one another. In a nutshell, what is required is that all South Africans accommodate one another and respect one another’s needs, aspirations and ideals.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No 19.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.