laid upon the Table:

1. (1) Development and Housing Bill [No 114—85 (HA)]—(Minister of Local Government, Housing and Works).
2. (2) Certificate by the State President in terms of section 31 of the Constitution, 1983, that the above-mentioned Bill deals with matters which are own affairs of the House of Assembly.

laid upon the Table:

Message from the President’s Council to the State President of the Republic of South Africa.

We have the honour to report to you as follows:

P G J KOORNHOF,

Chairman of the President’s Council.

J S BAUERMEESTER,

Secretary to President’s Council.

Cape Town

6 June 1985.

as Chairman, presented the Sixth Report of the Standing Select Committee on Home Affairs and National Education, relative to the Bible Society of South Africa Amendment Bill [No 104—85 (GA)], as follows:

A E NOTHNAGEL,

Chairman.

Committee Rooms

Parliament

10 June 1985.

Bill to be read a second time.

Mr Chairman, I move without notice:

Agreed to.

Mr Speaker, I move:

Copies of the explanatory notes on the Bill were made available to certain hon members of all three Houses of Parliament to enable them to study the contents.

I should also like to mention that the proposed amendments to the text of the principal Act were submitted to representative bodies of commerce and industry such as the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut, Assocom, FCI and Saaff for their comment. Comment and proposals were received from some of these institutions, and where practicable, such proposals were incorporated into the Bill.

For the sake of the new members of Parliament I should like to mention that since 1978 all amendments to the Schedules to the Customs and Excise Act during a year are bound in book form and, together with explanatory notes, are laid upon the table in the form of a White Paper. The amendments to schedule 1 resulting from the taxation proposals, have been included as a Schedule to this Bill.

The proposed amendments of section 7 as embodied in clause 1 makes it clear that passenger lists included in the reports inwards of a aircraft are no longer required as this information can be obtained from other sources.

†Mr Speaker, as airlines have already put efficient control measures into operation in respect of sealable stores and goods which must be declared by pilots and crew of aircraft on arrival in the Republic, the prescribed form required for this purpose may now be abolished. Clause 2 provides for this. The object of this amendment is to facilitate air traffic.

In the past a distinction was drawn between goods imported or exported by parcelpost and other post. Due to changed circumstances this is no longer necessary and in terms of the proposed amendment of section 13, as embodied in clause 3, goods imported or exported by post will now be treated uniformly.

The amendment of section 15, as embodied in clause 4, is self-explanatory and needs no elaboration.

Clause 5 provides for the sale in transit of imported goods. Such sales usually take place at higher prices and accordingly influence the value for customs duty purposes. In terms of the proposed insertion of section 39A the price actually paid or payable in such instances shall for the purposes of section 65(1) of the principal Act be the transaction value of such goods. The object of this amendment is merely to regularize a standing practice.

Section 45 of the principal Act provides for the determination of duty applicable on imported and locally manufactured excisable goods. In terms of this section the duty applicable at time of entry for home consumption of such goods or upon payment of duty for any reason whatever shall be leviable upon such goods. As the Commissioner for Customs and Excise has difficulty in interpreting the phrase “or upon a payment of duty for any reason whatever”, this phrase is being deleted and a new paragraph inserted which provides for the duties leviable upon such goods removed, taken or delivered without entry for home consumption.

Section 47A, as embodied in clause 7, prohibits any person from dealing with imported goods in whatever manner unless such goods have been duly entered for home consumption. It further provides for the enforcement of the provisions of the Act in respect of goods alleged to have been entered for whom consumption in terms of any agreement in any territory with which the Republic has concluded such agreement in terms of section 51 of the principal Act. Although inherent in the provisions and intention of the principal Act, it is considered necessary to make a specific provision of this nature in order to avoid any dispute regarding jurisdiction when goods allegedly entered for home consumption in a country with which the Republic has concluded a customs union agreement, move across the borders of such country to the Republic for consumption, and are found by an officer who has reasonable grounds to believe that such goods have not been duly entered for customs purposes. It is now being specifically provided that any such goods will be deemed not to have been entered for home consumption in the Republic. The object of this amendment is to facilitate law enforcement between the member countries of the Customs Union area in instances where dutiable goods move from one territory to another.

*Section 65(8)(a) of the Principal Act defines the value for customs duty purposes of any imported goods specified in Section B of Part of Schedule 1. The reference in this paragraph to “customs duty” leads to problems internationally in that certain countries interpret the existing provision as being conflict with the valuation code of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Clause 8 provides for the amendment of this subsection to accommodate the problem and to provide a clear definition of the value on which this duty should be paid.

The further amendment of section 65(8) is a textual amendment which needs no further elucidation.

The proposed amendment of section 69, as embodied in clause 9, is consequental to the textual amendment to section 65.

Clause 10 makes provision for the insertion of references to “Case Studies” and “Studies” issued under the “Agreement on Implementation of Article VII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.” A further amendment indicates that amendments of the agreement, interpretive notes, etc., will be distributed by the Secretariat of the Customs Co-operation Council, Brussels. A new paragraph is being inserted to make provision for evidential purposes that copies, or if amended such amended copies, of the documents listed in this clause, kept up to date by the Commissioner, shall be sufficient evidence of the contents thereof or of the effective date of any amendment thereto, as the case may be.

The amendment of section 75 of the principal act as embodied in clause 11, is mainly to clarify the position regarding the liability for the payment of duty by a supplier or reseller of distillate fuels and residual fuel oils and to provide for a rebate in respect of losses incurred while unpacked excisable spirits destined for export are removed and stored. It is being made clear that the furnishing of a declaration prescribed by regulation and the issuing of an invoice is a prerequisite to selling or obtaining distillate fuels and residual fuel oils and the rebate of duty, and failing to comply with these requirements will make such fuel liable to the payment of duty. Insofar as losses are concerned, it has been found that considerable losses may occur when unpacked excisable spirits are removed and stored. For this reason and in order to promote exports it has been decided to provide for the rebate of duty on the spirits so lost. I am now referring to the spirits which evaporate.

†In order to accommodate certain exporters of spirits who have suffered losses it has further been decided to make this amendment retroactive to 1 July 1983.

The amendment of section 102 of the principal Act as embodied in clause 12 is consequential upon the amendment of section 75(4)(cA) and is introduced for the purpose of the effective administration of the said section.

Clause 13 provides for the placing of liens on a wider range of goods of secure debts to the State arising from underpayments of duty, interest etc. This became necessary due to the increased evasion of customs and excise duties. I should like to say something specific about that.

Regarding the evasion of duties, I want to inform hon members of Parliament that, as has been mentioned by me in the recent past, the evasion of duties inflicts a heavy burden on the taxpayer and this is a matter that I cannot allow to continue without punitive measures. Although the Customs and Excise Act provides for the Commissioner to deal with transgressors of the Act departmentally, I am of the opinion that he should in future more often resort to criminal prosecutions in a court of law in order to deter those who are at present pursuing this undesirable practice. I sincerely hope that this word of warning will not pass unnoticed as the payment of taxes is the duty of all and not of only a certain portion of the taxpaying community.

Clause 14 provides for the Schedule to the Bill resulting from the taxation proposals which were tabled by the hon the Minister during his Budget Speech and for the date of commencement thereof.

As usual clause 15 provides for the continuation of the amendments of schedules 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 to the principal Act which were published in the Government Gazette during the period 3 February 1984 to 11 January 1985 and on 19 March, 1985.

Clauses 16 and 17 provide for certain amendments with retrospective effect.

Second Reading resumed

Mr Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper which relates to this measure, as follows:

I would like to motivate the amendment by dealing briefly with the history of this matter. The Bill was introduced at the second reading. I personally phoned the office of the hon the Minister of Finance that morning to try to speak to him about the matter. He was not available so I left a message for him to phone me back and I am still waiting for him to phone me back today, as he has not yet done so. [Interjections.] Secondly, it then transpired that the hon the Minister of Finance was not handling this Bill himself but that the hon the Deputy Minister was doing so. I discovered this after having been informed that there was no prospect of the Bill being held over and the Second Reading not being taken. I then spoke to the hon the Deputy Minister, admittedly at the eleventh hour—I concede that immediately—and I think that in the atmosphere of the moment the hon the Deputy Minister said he did not think that he could do it.

I can understand the hon the Deputy Minister’s problem at the time because he was then faced with the situation that he was shortly to move the Second Reading. He was faced with it at short notice and he then made that decision. I do not hold it against him that he made that decision even though it was a wrong one. However, I am surprised that I was not phoned back by the hon the Minister. I do have other problems with the hon the Minister as well, so perhaps I am not so surprised at that either.

I come now to the documentation concerning this Bill. It is not only available as a Bill and an explanatory memorandum, but there are also two volumes of documents. The one contains amendments to the schedules which is available for anyone to see and consists of 221 pages. The second volume is the explanatory memorandum relating to the amendment and has 68 pages. Those documents were given to us the morning before the Second Reading.

It did not seem to me to be an unreasonable request—as the rules provide that one has to deal with the matter within two days after the Second Reading—to ask that the Second Reading be held over.

It is also remarkable that whereas in previous years we received advance copies of the legislation and the explanatory memoranda so that we could devote time to studying them, on this occasion we received them on the morning of the day for Second Reading. How anyone who really wants to do his job in the House could possibly have dealt with it that Monday and have been available to deal with it the next morning in the standing committee when the rule requires that one has to deal with it in the two succeeding days, is a mystery. Perhaps there are such hon members available in this House who have nothing else to do, but the members of the standing committee found that they could not do it.

What is remarkable is that when the standing committee met the next morning under the chairmanship of the hon member for Smithfield, it was unanimous in the approach which I adopted. It unanimously supported a proposal which I put that the Standing Orders should be suspended so that we could sit for two days a little later, this was some time ago. Every single member of that committee agreed; there was not one, whether they were hon members of the NP, the CP, the NRP, the House of Representatives or the House of Delegates, who disagreed. Everybody agreed that it was unreasonable to expect us to deal with the matter at that time.

We had a situation in this House where the proposal that it should go back to the committee was turned down by this House by a Nationalist majority after the proposal had been supported unanimously, after it had been supported by the NP members. In the other two Houses events took place as a result of which the motion was either removed from the Order Paper or something else happended to it. What is significant is that those two things took place in those two Houses under circumstances which resulted in the committee being told that as far as at least one of the Houses was concerned, they certainly had not appreciated what they were being asked to do in removing it from the Order Paper.

If this Constitution is going to work at all, I believe it has to work in such a way that one does not take advantage of the lack of knowledge that other people have of the rules, when those people have not been here for such a long time. I say this because there are people in this House who have been here for a long time and who still do not know the rules. I do not believe that that is an exaggeration. [Interjections.] What then happened was that we came there and were told that the House of Representatives and the House of Delegates had decided that they were going to refer the matter back to the standing committee. I ask anybody why they should then have decided to refer it back to the standing committee if in fact they were fully aware of the implications and the rules at the time when it was removed from their Order Papers. Somebody has to explain that. To put it at its mildest, the explanation that was given to the standing committee meeting was a case of advantage being taken of people who were not as experienced in the rules of this Parliament as some other people were. That is an intolerable situation and one which cannot be accepted.

The problem that exists—and there is a very real problem in regard to the whole committee structure—is that we have before us the following statement:

and this was the other part of my argument on the occasion of that debate:

That is the approach of the hon the Minister of Finance. He says that if one wants to know anything about policy one should ask him and not his officials.

However, on Friday he said:

Which one of the two statements is correct? What is factual, is that despite requests by the standing committee that he should attend those committee meetings in order to answer questions on policy—we had a meeting this morning again—there was no sign of that hon Minister except on one occasion when he came to give evidence on the Finance Bill.

If we are going to deal with matters of policy, and the hon the Minister says that he is the one to deal with policy, then he must turn up at the meetings and we must not then have the complaints which we have now that we are to have legislation stipulating that if one takes time off to go to the cloakroom, one can have R25 docked from one’s pay. We are going to be treated like a bunch of schoolchildren in this place!

That is what is happening but the hon the Minister can say: “Oh, I am busy; I am not coming”. Sir, I do not want that and I do not think anybody else wants to see a government running a country in that way.

We have another situation which causes problems. When one wants documents at a meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, one finds that we have an hon Minister who says: “As far as I am concerned, because you once got hold of a document which I did not really want you to get hold of, from now on nobody is going to part with any documents until I, the Minister, decide that that document should be released.” He said again: “I have instructed my officials not to part with any documents without my prior personal consent”. So, when though he is floating around the country or is doing other things, the standing committee must be available, they must turn up and be there. [Interjections.] If this is the way in which standing committees are going to be expected to conduct the affairs of this Parliament, there is something dramatically wrong.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member where his benchmate is?

This really demonstrates to me what is going on. At the present moment there are two Cabinet Ministers in this House, and the one’s contribution to the debate is to ask me: “Where is your benchmate?” [Interjections.] That is his contribution to the debate and it demonstrates the standing of this debate. I am not allowed to say the man is an idiot, because that would be unparliamentary …[Interjections.]

I now want to ask the Government why they did not accept this motion when it was put…

Order! The hon member must withdraw the words, “I am not allowed to say the man is an idiot”, because that by implication casts a reflection on the hon the Minister.

Can I say so, Sir?

No, the hon member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw the words, “I cannot say he is an idiot”.

No!

Then what must I withdraw, Sir? Please tell me exactly what you want me to withdraw, and I shall withdraw it.

I do not have the Hansard at my disposal, but the hon member cannot say something which by insinuation is reputed to be true and thus constitutes a reflection. That is the essence of what I want the hon member to withdraw.

Mr Chairman, I withdraw what you ask me to withdraw.

The question I want to pose, is why the governing party did not agree to accept the motion to refer this back to the committee without debate, so that we could then in fact have had the continuation of this debate at another time, because there is a two-hour time limit in respect of this matter. As I understand the rules, two Houses, the House of Representatives and the House of Delegates, have already agreed that it should go back to the standing committee, and that whatever we decide this afternoon, it has to go back to the standing committee in any event. Therefore, why we have to indulge in this debate is something that we with great respect cannot understand. We need an answer to that because, after all, the reality is that we need to deal with this Bill which is an important measure and we are not going to be afforded the time to deal with it.

What is happening in the standing committees—and it is happening particularly in the Standing Committee on Finance—is that because legislation is not given to us timeously and we are rushed, we cannot in fact have the degree of questioning on each measure that we want to have. We cannot obtain the memoranda from the people from whom we want to call for them. We cannot hear sufficient evidence in order to deal with the matter and we come here and the legislation has to go through. On the face of it, it has gone through the committee and the public thinks we have had an opportunity to deal with all these things, while in reality, due to the facts I have listed, to some extent it is clear that the standing committees cannot do their job if they are being asked to do them under pressure at this late stage.

Let me deal specifically with some of the aspects of this Bill because I think it is important that we should deal with them. In the first place, the ones of proof is changed in regard to a number of aspects, and we find this objectionable. Secondly, presumptions in law are in fact created where, in some cases, they cannot be rebutted, and this too we find objectionable. Thirdly, section 114 is sought to be amended, in a way which jeopardizes the goods of other people. Fourthly, we have been asked to approve a whole variety of amendments to tariffs in respect of duties of various kinds, and we are asked to deal with all of them. Let me give hon members an example as to why we find this Bill objectionable in many respects, and why it needs detailed consideration.

In terms of section 114 which is sought to be amended in terms of clause 13 of this Bill, a Hen is being given to the State over the goods of other people which may be in the possession of a person who owes money in respect of duties. That means that innocent third parties are prejudiced as a result of this amendment. Let me give an example. You, Mr Chairman, may decide that you are going to give me a machine on loan to keep on my premises. It is your property, Mr Chairman, because you have paid for it. However, I may have committed a breach of the customs and excise laws. The authorities can then take away your machine in satisfaction of the claim which they have against me. That is not in accordance with the basic concepts of law, and not a single lawyer in this House who is worth his salt can possible say that he would support such a thing because it is contrary to the principles of natural justice.

Allow me to quote to hon members from a telex from Assocom in which their attitude is reflected. The hon the Deputy Minister said that he had consulted Assocom, but unfortunately he did not tell us in his speech that Assocom was against this. Let me read just a portion of what Assocom says in their telex addressed not to me but to the Secretary of Parliament for transmission to the standing committee. It reads as follows:

This, in the opinion of Assocom, will be—

In the face of that telex and in the face of the fact that those representations were made, the hon the Deputy Minister gets up and, in moving the Second reading of this Bill, says:

When he dealt with the amendment to section 114, there was a massive silence on the fact that Assocom objected to this. There was a massive silence. I want to ask him why he was so silent and so reticent about the fact that this was a matter on which he had consulted people and why he did not find it necessary to say that Assocom had in fact expressed these very strong views against this measure. I think it is necessary that the standing committee should deal with it, but the problem that is going to arise, is that there is a time limit of two hours in respect of this legislation. The result of this is going to be that if we do come to the conclusion that Assocom is right, we are actually helpless because we are not allowed to amend a Bill in the standing committee. That is another problem. We are only entitled to submit a report. I think the public of South Africa have to know that we are helpless, because the rules have been framed in such a manner and the rules are administered in such a manner that we actually can not do our job. That is something which, with great respect, we find utterly objectionable.

Let me give another example of where we object to provisions in the Bill. In terms of clause 7, which serves to insert a new section 47A, provision is made for the onus of proof to be placed upon a person other than the State. If the onus of proof can be discharged by the State, the normal rules should apply. Only in exceptional circumstances does one seek to place the onus of proof upon the person who is not there to seek to exact the duty. In other words, the principles of our law are such that the onus rests on the State and not on other persons who are affected.

We have exactly the same thing in regard to the question of proof in clause 10. Not only is it provided that this involves evidence, but, what is more, there is not even provision for the rebuttal of that evidence. That, however, is binding on individuals.

So there are many other examples in this legislation. On the face of it, these may not be political issues, but they are issues with which commerce and industry are fundamentally concerned and issues we cannot ignore.

Then there are the schedules we are being asked to approve. These schedules deal with some very important issues which relate to the whole structure of the economy in South Africa. The issue of protection or otherwise, the issue whether a duty should be paid or not, affects manufacturers and producers in South Africa. Let me give an example of what needs to be investigated. The hon the Deputy Minister knows of the controversy at the present moment with regard to rice. It concerns the local industry and the importation of rice, particularly from Thailand. That is something that is dealt with in these schedules which we are being asked to approve. We must, however, investigate that and deal with it.

Let me give another example. There is at present a problem in regard to the export of secondhand machinery from South Africa. With the low value of the rand people are exporting machinery from South Africa, also because there is an under-utilization of capacity. People are getting very good prices in rand terms, but when the upturn comes, we are going to have a problem because we are going to be short of machinery and we are going to have to import it at much higher prices because of the dollar values at which we will have to import that machinery. So, South Africa is becoming poor as a result of this.

There is another problem at the present moment in regard to scrap metal. Scrap metal is being exported from South Africa while that scrap metal can be used in local manufacture. People are exporting it because of the very substantial benefits to them as a result of the low value of the rand. However, manufacturers in South Africa are experiencing shortages in this regard. In the schedules there are provisions which deal with and affect these very matters.

Then there is an issue affecting the footwear industry, an issue causing considerable debate. Then there are problems involving artificial fibres. These are all very real problems in regard to local industry. There is the problem relating to aluminium which is also included in these schedules. There is a whole series of such problems where our whole industrial situation in South Africa is affected to various degrees by the provisions contained in the somewhat lengthy book dealing with this. We are now being asked to ratify actions that have taken place in this regard over a whole year. In some cases completely different circumstances have arisen since the original provisions were introduced.

I want to ask some of my colleagues here who are more familiar with the position in South Africa regarding wheat whether they are satisfied with the provision that was introduced in regard to wheat last year and which is still applicable because it has not yet been repealed. These are matters that affect all of us here. [Interjections.] The whole position in regard to wheat crops has changed overnight.

The difficulty is that I think hardly anybody has looked at what we are ratifying. This is the dilemma in which we find ourselves. We are being asked to ratify matters which are part of the taxation proposals with which we do not agree. Admittedly, we have been aware of those since the Budget. We are being asked to deal with oil prices and the petrol situation. One has to deal with a variety of things. Let me give a simple example. The hon member for Paarl will be one of the few people who would know what I am talking about. We are also dealing with olives in this measure. The growing of olives in South Africa is something which the hon member for Paarl and I would like to see encouraged, but we are dealing with it here in a way which I am not sure gives us adequate protection in this regard.

These are the things we are asked to deal with and we have not been given the opportunity and the time to do so properly. That is why I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the Bill should go back to the standing committee. I want to go further and say—and want to give notice of it now—that I believe that when the standing committee submits its report, we must suspend the relevant Standing Orders so that there can be a proper Committee Stage and we can deal with amendments which may be necessary in order to give effect to what we believe is desirable to protect South Africa insofar as its industry and agriculture are concerned and to bring about fairness in the treatment of people when they are affected by this legislation.

Mr Chairman, I must begin by saying that the hon member for Yeoville never fails to amaze one about his way of doing things. Without having placed his amendment on the Order Paper he would have achieved exactly the same. I think that the hon member said so in so many words, and then even arrogated to himself the liberty to conduct a debate on the matter. This is typical of the view that he can conduct a debate but that no one else ought to speak about it further.

The hon member was unable to resist putting on something of a performance. This amendment is pure showmanship. If that is not so, then he was pressurized by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens. He has now moved the same amendment to express his solidarity with the other two Houses that have already accepted this amendment. The hon member will deny, if pressed, that he initiated this amendment in the other two Houses. If he denies it I shall accept his word, but then I want to ask who did initiate it. The hon member cannot deny that it comes from the ranks of his party.

Because the other two Houses have already accepted the amendment to refer the Bill back to the Standing Committee on Finance, Joint Rule 27(2) provides that after the Second Reading debate in this House has been finalized it is also deemed to have been referred back. Even had the amendment not appeared on the Order Paper today we should therefore have had no option but to refer it back to the standing committee. However it is that love of display, of playing to the gallery, that caused the hon member to be unable to resist the temptation. If that is not the case then he totally miscalculated the effect his amendment could have.

However I do not wish to fight with the hon member for Yeoville today.

You will suffer a beating.

The hon member for Parktown is just like a naughty child who breaks a window. Because he is a spent force politically and does not enjoy any more outside attention, he has to begin to attack Groote Schuur and Prof Reichardt just to get a little publicity again. I think he ought to be ashamed of himself.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Is it proper for the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament to have made the allegations against the hon member for Parktown which he did, that he was a “uitgediende politikus”, that he was attacking Groote Schuur Hospital and that he was affecting his professional standing in regard to what he had said in respect of a professional matter where he was held in very high regard in this country? The hon Chief Whip was implying an attack on his professional standing which he is not allowed to do.

Order! The hon the Chief Whip of Parliament may proceed.

The fact is that the hon member arrogates to himself the right to question, in the public press, the professional conduct of his colleagues in the medical profession, and if he does so I can surely question his conduct in this House as well.

Do so by all means.

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: The hon member is now saying that he is entitled to question the professional standing of the hon member for Parktown.

Sir, I did not…

Order! I listened very carefully to what the hon Chief Whip was saying. If I remember correctly the hon member for Parktown said that the hon Chief Whip could question certain conduct. I do not think that what the hon Chief Whip has said is in the circumstances contrary to the rules of Parliament. The hon Chief Whip of Parliament may continue.

Thank you, Sir. I should like to put the matter beyond all doubt. I shall not express an opinion on the hon member’s professional skills. I believe that he is professionally competent. That is good enough, but his conduct towards his successors at Groote Schuur is aimed only at cheap publicity and I think it is unbecoming that he should attack people in his old profession outside this House.

Order! The hon Chief Whip must come back to the legislation.

Yes, I think I had better come back to it.

Since I am now returning to the question of customs and excise I do not wish to fight with the hon member for Yeoville today, because he knows how terribly fond I am of him. I am also sincerely grateful for the opportunity he has granted me today, by way of his amendment, to place on record the developments with regard to the Bill as well. At the same time I want to react not only to his remarks but also to those of the hon member for Cape Town Gardens, who made a distasteful and unjustified attack on me the other day when he discussed this Bill in a different debate.

Up to now—you heard the evidence this afternoon when the introductory speech in the Second Reading debate on a specific Bill was delivered here—I made a reasonable effort to keep out of party politics. I refrained from entering the party-political arena, but the two hon members really leave one no alternative.

I am not going to permit a PFP backbencher who, due to a lack of members, was pushed into a middle bench, to kick things in my direction and get away with it. [Interjections.] I want to say here and now that the difference between these two hon members, if I may compare them to rugby players, is that the hon member for Yeoville is the man who plays to the pavilion and does not worry much about the team, while the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is the fellow who runs on to the field with a knife in his sock. [Interjections.] Let us first place the …

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: The hon Chief Whip is saying that the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is the sort of person who goes on to the rugby field with a knife in his sock. By that he implies that the hon member is the kind of person who, when he plays a game in accordance with the rules, would stab somebody. [Interjections.] That may be funny to the hon members on the other side, but to me it is not funny at all; it is unparliamentary.

Order! What did the hon Chief Whip mean by the expression “he goes on to the field with a knife in his sock”?

Sir, I meant that the hon member lacks the finesse of the hon member for Yeoville. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon the Chief Whip may proceed.

Admit what you said.

This hon member now wants me to say that the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is a “meanie”, and I am not going to say it. [Interjections.]

Let us now put the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill in perspective as one of this year’s four tax bills, because after all, that is what we are discussing here this afternoon. The hon member must excuse me if I give him a lecture on it now because I should like to have this on record for the sake of the other Houses, too, which they allege I am misleading.

In constrast to general bills, this tax bill is placed directly on the agenda for the Joint Sitting so that the Minister may read his Second Reading speech. Surely that is general knowledge. The handling of it in the House, however, differs from the handling of a general bill in the sense that it passes through three different stages in the Houses, whereas this is not the case with the general bills. Originally the Joint Rules and orders did not provided that tax bills be referred to Stof. The chairmen of standing committees held a conference at which the hon member for Yeoville made a request. The hon member is a long-term planner. When he says something today one must know that he wants to achieve something thereby in three years’ time. [Interjections.] This time, however, he played his hand within months. At that conference the hon member for Yeoville asked that these tax Bills also be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance for a limited period. Accordingly the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, acting in good faith, effected such an amendment in February of this year. In terms of that this Bill will now be referred to SCOF on the two successive days after the second reading for deliberation—only for deliberation.

I believe that the hon member for Yeoville is trying, by way of convention, to achieve something other than pure deliberation. That committee cannot consider and effect amendments, and he knows it. The committee cannot call outside witnesses or consider the representations of outside agencies. Nor can it even consider that three-metre-long telex which the chairman received from the tax consultant who wanted to come and give evidence on the Income Tax Act. He cannot even consider it; It simply has to be sent to the Margo Commission. All this committee can do is to achieve greater clarity as regards the content of the Bill. It need not even achieve consensus.

Are you prepared to answer a question?

First just allow me to complete my train of thought. The Committee need not issue a report either.

But it can.

In the event of its issuing a report it cannot report that the Bill should not be proceeded with.

It can propose amendment.

It cannot propose any amendments. [Interjections.] The only function of the standing committee is to deliberate—and noting else. The function of this standing committee is totally limited, but the hon member is trying to give it a different function. The test for this tax legislation does not lie in the standing committee, but in the three stages in this House through which it must pass. The Committee on the Standing Rules and Orders inserted these two days of deliberation in good faith in the expectation that this could give rise to greater clarity as regards the provisions of the Bill and so that more meaningful debate could take place in the Houses.

Since tax bills are traditionally end-of-session bills the period was limited to an absolute minimum of two days. What has happened now? The hon member has sketched the course of this Bill with much innuendo. I did not even rise to object to his impugning my integrity in the process, although what he said was calculated to do so.

Tell us what you did there.

I am now going to tell the hon member what was done. He is an extremely impatient member but I shall tell him. On Monday, 27 May, exactly 14 days ago today, the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill appeared on the agenda of the Joint Sitting. In terms of the rules, Scof should have deliberated on it on 28 May and 29 May. In other words, the meeting of the standing committee was not organised without warning or out of the blue, as that ignorant hon member for Cape Town Gardens tried to allege. [Interjections.] He says that a meeting of the standing committee was organised without warning and without notice. The rules stipulate that. The poor hon member is so ignorant. [Interjections.] He is so out to cause hurt that he does not confine himself to the truth.

How much notice was given?

And then he becomes angry when I say that he goes on to the field with a knife in his sock. [Interjections.]

On the morning of 20 May, when this committee had to sit for the first time, the Language Festival took place in Paarl. I have great appreciation for the presence of the hon member for Yeoville there. I do not think we need to keep saying what a great patriot he is. After all, he knows it. He knows what a great patriot he is.

That has nothing to do with the Bill.

Nevertheless I wish to say to him that I am very grateful that he was present in Paarl. [Interjections.] It was for that very reason that the chairman arranged that the standing committee would meet that afternoon. For that purpose many officials from Pretoria turned up, because it is the rule that the committee must discuss the measure within those two days.

How many officials were there?

Sir, I do not know whether you find such a dialogue conducive to debate. It is not very convenient. I did give the hon member a clear opportunity to make his speech.

That is an insult to the Chairman.

You are exaggerating now.

Instead of the committee proceeding with its functions that afternoon—and I do not say this by way of reproach, because certain members were in difficult situations—the hon member moved his motion to the effect that the standing committee …[Interjections.]

Order! The hon Chief Whip may proceed with his speech.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I take it that that excludes the hon member for Yeoville. This hon member then moved that the Houses report and recommended that rule 41(2A) be suspended and that the Bill—and hon members must take note now, please—be referred back to the committee on 4 and 5 June. Now, I want to say at once that this entire standing committee—all its components, that is to say all the parties and all the members, as this hon members said—approved this in good faith. The hon member sometimes has the ability to get away with something.

Are you accusing me of bluffing all your members?

Order!

Mr Chairman, may I say at once—and I am not putting in a plea for my own position now—that the task of the Chief Whip of Parliament is undoubtedly to try and ensure a constant flow of legislation to standing committees to keep the Parliamentary programme going. [Interjections.] Because this is the case I do not do this arbitrarily. The best person to consult in that regard is the chairman of the standing committee; and I did consult him. [Interjections.] While we were consulting, we reached the conclusion that if this Customs and Excise Amendment Bill were to be referred back to the committee on 4 and 5 June as indicated, it would seriously disrupt the general legislation that had to be considered by the committee. I emphasize “had to be” because this tax legislation may be considered by the committee while the other general financial legislation must undergo the process of being considered by the standing committee.

I have the details of the programme of that standing committee from date to date and what its functions were. I do not want to go into those details now because the hon member is aware of them himself.

We also realized that the legislation could be delayed for so long that it could not be introduced during this session if we complied with that request. With the utmost respect to the members of the standing committee I want to say that these factors were not considered when they unanimously decided to ask that this legislation be referred back. I say, therefore, that the standing committee acted in good faith.

It is against the background of this programme of the Standing Committee on Finance—it is a tremendously full programme which becomes increasingly fuller towards the end of the session—that I began to negotiate with the other two Houses, the report being top of the list. I negotiated with those Houses to withdraw the report and place the Bill itself on the Order Paper for finalization.

In the nature of the matter is was necessary to make a choice here. One had to decide whether one would allow that Bill to go back to the standing committee and in that way disrupt the rest of the legislative programme. I want to tell this House at once—the hon member must accept my word in this regard—that this was not a decision taken lightly because one wants to keep as many hon members as possible abreast of the situation.

In the same absolutely simple language in which I have explained the situation to this House today, I explained it to the members of the standing committee in the other two Houses.

To whom?

I do not wish to fall into the trap of becoming involved in an argument here concerning members in the other Houses, but that hon member is driving me to do so. I want to tell him here and now that in the House of Delegates I spoke to the chairman of the Select Committee on Finance of the House of Delegates. I consulted him personally and subsequently I have again held a discussion with him in that regard. With his other member in the committee I…

How long before?

Order!

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon Chief Whip a question?

Order! The hon Chief Whip is busy answering a question. The hon member for Cape Town Gardens must take his seat. [Interjections.]

I am not prepared to answer a question by that hon member because due to the way in which he hurled accusations across the floor without any respect for the facts, I do not associate myself with any of his questions. [Interjections.]

I explained the step in simple terms. I spelt out precisely what would happen if that report were to be withdrawn from the Order Paper, viz that this Bill would be placed back because we physically did not have the time to deal with it in standing committee. If a misunderstanding arose in that regard then I find it regrettable, but I want to add at once that I also find it inconceivable. The allegation that there was no consultation is totally untrue. In the course of this year not a single Bill has passed through this House concerning which I have consulted as intensively with representatives of the other two Houses as in respect of this one.

However I have already said that I am not going to fall into the hon member’s trap of becoming involved in an argument with representatives in the other two Houses if it is alleged that they did not understand the arrangements. Because the hon member for Cape Town Gardens hates this system—I know he hates it, because the other day he said: “It is a shambles” …[Interjections.]

Hear, hear!

Hon members will note the expression with which the hon member for Cape Town Gardens says hear, hear. One cannot even provide an adequate description of the look on his face to present an image of it in Hansard. [Interjections.] He does everything in his power to politicize not my person, because that is not important, but the position of the Chief Whip of Parliament. The Official Opposition obviously realizes that this system is succeeding. That is why they are going out of their way to wreck the mutual confidence that exists between the office of the Chief Whip of Parliament and the other Houses. The hon member for Yeoville is a strategist. He knows that if he can get his spoke into a certain part of the wheel, he can damage the system. I am not trying to say that I am responsible for the success of the system …

I think you are suffering from a paranoia.

Sir, can you believe it? The hon member says that he thinks I am suffering from a paranoia! That, coming from the hon member for Yeoville, is undoubtedly something I need not take any further. [Interjections.]

Why should I want to trick representatives of other Houses when I have to co-operate with them the following day? What ideological point would I be able to score against them by keeping this Bill from the standing committee? That Bill would in any event have to go back to the two respective Houses and would have to be taken through all its stages. It is merely a question of my having had to decide on a priority at that stage. The hon Chief Opposition Whip will be able to attest to the fact that that is sometimes a difficult decision. For example, on Friday he had to decide that the hon member for Sea Point had to make a speech instead of the hon member for Bryanston.

I now ask whether the PFP informed representatives of those Houses that they would have a full opportunity to discuss those clauses. If hon members did not inform them about the implications of this amendment then I want to throw this accusation, viz that I am trifling with the rules, back in those hon members’ faces. The arrogance of the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is truly astounding. He makes out that everyone is ignorant. However, I want to tell him here and now that in any event the hon member Dr Reddy, with his background, reads legislation on customs and excise duties better than that hon member can read a comic strip. [Interjections.]

The position is that this Bill has been available for two weeks now. In that time enquiries could be addressed to the department. However the department has not yet been approached by anyone except by an hon member of the Government party to obtain any clarity in that regard. In the meantime, Scof did not deliberate on Friday owing to the lack of a quorum, and I understand that. However, that that means the work does not progress. This hon member does not allow informal discussions to take place because he wants everything on tape. [Interjections.] Does he not want everything on tape?

What you are now saying, is untrue.

I say that the fact that the hon member comes up with such a proposal at this stage really means that he wants to create a platform for himself, because he does not want better legislation. I want to say to him that the members of that committee are beginning to gossip about him. They are beginning to say that he is an inquisitor, and that he puts everyone in the accused bench. They are beginning to say that he is not interested in the functions of the committee but rather in his own ego. That is why it seems to me as if the hon the Minister of Finance is correct when he says that the hon member for Yeoville wants to govern jointly but also wants to oppose. He will really have to choose his little role, because until he has done that, he will continue to be a hindrance to that committee. I say specifically to hon members of the Official Opposition that they must put a stop to these little tricks they are up to in the standing committee, in which they are trying to involve hon members of the other Houses in their political game and to lead them astray on a path on which they can only be the losers. They are playing with fire, and have already burnt their fingers in the process.

Mr Chairman, I found it very interesting that the hon Chief Whip of Parliament spoke for so long and in the end said nothing. He accused the hon member for Yeoville here of speaking for the gallery and seeking solidarity with the other two Houses, but surely it is NP policy that there must be solidarity with the other two Houses for the sake of consensus. But now that he is seeking consensus, the hon Chief Whip rejects it. However, he very clearly revealed the NP to us when he said that the hon member for Yeoville planned for a long time but they had absolutely no planning at all.

The hon Chief Whip said that the test did not lie in that standing committee but in this House. There is no longer such a thing as a committee stage because the committee stages have fallen away and one cannot discuss a matter in a committee stage here any longer. This must now be done in those standing committees. But what does one find in those standing committees? We all know that this financial legislation, which arises from the appropriation, comes before the committee and the House in the last week or ten days of a session. The legislation on banking was foisted on us ten days ago, whereas the Cabinet had been sitting with that legislation since October of last year. First it was said that the legislation was too technical, then another reason was given and then it was blamed on the appropriation. But this Cabinet is not prepared to allow the work to be done without delay, and it seems to me as if something is being concealed in this Customs and Excise Amendment Bill. In other cases certain things are also being concealed and then the legislation is rushed through here and it must go to the committees where the press or the public is not present.

But we have in fact said that it should be held here in the House, and now you want to conceal it in the committee.

Now we are dealing here with a second reading speech and we only have a few minutes in which to speak, but the Minister, particularly the hon the Minister of Finance, belittles us and does not reply to questions. He is absolutely arrogant. I can understand why the hon Chief Whip of Parliament says that he is so fond of the hon member for Yeoville, because his Minister of Finance is a “flop” and now he wants to win this hon member over to his side. After all they are now taking over people from the opposition parties, the NRP and the Progs. [Interjections.]

I want to tell the hon Chief Whip that I support this motion of the hon member for Yeoville. My policy and the policy of the hon member for Yeoville are diametrically opposed, but this is a financial measure; it is not politics or anything else, and we want to see the best financial measures go through this House. This not only applies to the measures in connection with customs and excise, but also to all other financial bills.

I do not want to talk any longer because I support this Bill, but I take exception to the hon the Minister of Finance not forwarding these things to us in time, but foisting them on us at the last minute. What is more he then does not have the courtesy to appear before that committee when we request him to be there. Call after call after call was sent to him, and then he said he could not come because he was involved in consultations, for example. Who was he holding consultations with? With one of the people who should have appeared before the committee that morning!

He ignores Parliament.

He ignores the standing committee. A person who ignores and circumvents that standing committee as a part of Parliament and the legislative process, is ignoring this Parliament and its authority. He creates no other impression but that he wants to act like a dictator here, wants to expedite the flow of work and wants to make his contribution here.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Sunnyside tried to say something, but what he said had absolutely no content. He did not advance any clear line of thought so that we could know where we stood with them as far as this legislation was concerned, except that he said that he supported the hon member for Yeoville in his amendment which was before the House. I want to get back to the hon member for Yeoville’s speech later.

At the beginning of my speech I want to make it clear that, in order to argue about this amendment of the hon member for Yeoville, one will first have to look at the present system. The dominant characteristic of the system is probably that we have succeeded in eliminating the long public debates here in the House of Assembly. I think that this is the main cause of the frustrations of the hon member for Yeoville, namely that he cannot use the public debate to speak to people outside and influence the public in the gallery any longer. This initial long discussion on the principles of a Bill, for the sake of the people sitting in the gallery, has been reduced to a great extent by this dispensation. The lengthy committee stage of the past, which was not only time-consuming, but was also to a great extent seized upon by the opposition as an inhibiting mechanism to practise delaying politics, has now also been eliminated.

Now the system of standing committees has been introduced. The standing committee has two specific objectives in particular. The first of these is to seek as many points of agreement between the respective parties as possible, and then there is the deliberate endeavour to reach such agreement, and consequently so-called consensus.

The legislation before a standing committee is introduced by the Government in power for a specific purpose, and must be considered accordingly. As the hon Chief Whip of Parliament said, what is mainly at issue is that discussions can take place to identify problems which may arise in the specific Bill. Consequently, to move away from the initial objectives set by the Bill is inevitably to move away from the possibility of reaching consensus.

Because it is therefore necessary to discuss the principles and ask questions about them in the committee, the members of the standing committee must accept that this cannot be the predominant discussion in the standing committee. This is probably the first aspect on which we as committee members will have to reach consensus and with regard to which we will have to orientate ourselves. I know that the hon member for Yeoville is not going to agree with me in this regard, but if we were to accept that a Bill must have a specific objective, we could argue about the respective clauses, and consequently a long discussion on the Bill would eventually fall away.

This then brings me to the financial measures, and more specifically to this measure on customs and excise. This also brings me to the second objective of the standing committee, namely the discussion on the technical content of such Bill. The reason why this measure and the amendment of the hon member for Yeoville are being discussed here in this unusual way, must be sought in the fact that the members of the committee became bogged down in their search for technical explanations.

The bound books which were made available to us, reached us fairly late for the reasons explained by the department. It was not possible to make a thorough study of the contents of those books before the standing committee sat, but the bound books contained the tariff adjustments made during the year which had now to be approved by Parliament. I want to argue that this was where we failed to see the entire purpose of the standing committee. The approval is purely academic, and in the past was disposed of without much discussion in this House.

What is therefore of importance to the standing committee is the amendments to the existing sections of the principal Act to adjust to prevailing conditions and to accommodate the budget amendments which the hon the Minister announced in his Budget speech. Consequently I want to argue that it is possible to keep the existing rules, as they are at present contained in the Standing Orders, applicable as regards the relevant measures.

I had the opportunity to discuss this Bill with the department before the standing committee considered it. The hon member for Yeoville and other hon members also had the opportunity to hold such discussions with the department. Consequently I could satisfy myself that the amendments, as proposed, were acceptable and tallied with orderly financial policy.

What I am trying to say is that we must not use the minor details to wreck the present system. Unfortunately, the hon member for Yeoville wants to seize on the minor details of a measure, not to get more clarity on it, but deliberately to cause a delay so that the system as a whole will be wrecked. Traditionally the financial measures arising from the budget are virtually the last measures which are disposed of during a session. Consequently it is necessary for the two-day-rule to remain in force for the standing committee. In the main these are amendments which arise from the appropriation, the principle of which has already been discussed and agreed to by the standing committee when it devoted seven sitting days to it. Therefore, to want to use these financial measures to discuss financial and tax policies again in depth, is merely a waste of precious time because it amounts to a repetition of the facts which were already debated during those seven days.

I want to repeat that the hon member for Yeoville is using this measure to put a spoke in the wheel in order to wreck this system. At all times we must try to avoid considering the discussion of minor details as a way to cause this system to fail. Perhaps I can suggest something in this connection, with regard to standing committees and more specifically with regard to the Standing Committee on Finance which has to meet exceptionally often and cannot plan in advance on precisely which days it will have to meet. Perhaps it is necessary to think of appointing alternate members who can take the place of permanent members of such a committee in future.

To get back to the measure in front of us, in the first place I want to refer to clause 13 which amends section 114 of the principal Act. In this connection the hon member for Yeoville referred to the lien which can be exercised by the State to protect its rights. It does not concern other people’s goods which the debtor has in his possession. It concerns goods which are the property of that debtor. These are the goods over which the lien can be exercised. I think the hon member for Yeoville’s view of the entire matter was wrong and he approached it incorrectly.

As far as clause 11 is concerned, I want to refer to the provision that the supplier or dealer must be in possession of a certificate in which the receiver of such diesel certifies that the diesel was supplied to him at a tariff lower than the usual sales tariff. It is now the duty of the supplier or the re-seller to produce such rebate certificate when he is asked to do so.

I want to conclude by referring briefly to clause 1. Will the list of names available at airports be adequate and effective enough to arrange the matter of incoming passengers properly? Are there adequate internal measures at airports to be able to handle this situation?

We take pleasure in supporting the amendments. It would seem as if the measure will be referred back to the Standing Committee on Finance and that we will discuss it there further. In conclusion I want to repeat that we must not use legislation to put a spoke in the wheel in order to prevent proper progress being made with our legislative machinery.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Gezina has some strange interpretations of the role of standing committees. It would appear that in his view, as soon as a member is conscientous, studies a Bill in detail and proceeds to find out as much as he can about the Bill, he is then trying to put a spoke in the wheel of proceedings. I would suggest that the contrary is true. It is the job of hon members to do that. He revealed his attitude when he said that discussion in detail is a waste of time. One can understand that from an hon member who belongs to a party that perhaps sees his participation as that of a rubber stamp, but people who feel that there may be a greater role for standing committees than being rubber stamps, may feel that the discussion of detail is of importance in a number of Bills. However, the hon member also said that in respect of this measure he discussed it with the department before the meeting of the standing committee. If that is what is honestly recommended, namely that the way that Parliament should proceed is that the spokesmen of the various political parties should get hold of the department before they have even given evidence before the standing committee and hold discussions with them first and that, after all parties have taken as much time as they need with the department, they then come before the standing committee and the whole process is repeated, then in my view it defeats the objective of having a standing committee in the first place.

I wish to refer primarily to the remarks made by the hon Chief Whip of Parliament today, and to remarks made by him and the hon the Deputy Minister in the course of the debate on the report and the motion before us. I was most disappointed with the hon Chief Whip of Parliament today. I believe that I can take as good as I can give and that politics is not a game for those who cannot stand robust debate, but I really think that the level of personal attack relating to personalities as opposed to the activities of individuals in the course of the performance of their parliamentary duties, has been typical of contributions I have heard that hon member make in the few years I have been here. As the Chief Whip of Parliament he should be attempting to raise the level of debate in this House, not trying to break it down.

It is impossible for him to do so.

You are certainly no judge of that.

It is interesting to hear the hon the Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare react. I can understand the frustrations of both those members. They have been around a long time and yet that hon Minister was the second longest serving Deputy Minister in this House. He was promoted beyond the level of his competence. I can understand the frustration of the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament too. He would have liked to be a Cabinet Minister. Today he felt there was a need to prove his credentials. He is of the opinion that everything is working so smoothly thanks to his hard work and capabilities.

The hon the Chief Whip said that he could not understand the purpose of the amendment of the hon member for Yeoville. I think the purpose of the amendment is obvious to anybody and must be obvious to the hon the Chief Whip too, namely to pre-empt the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill today because we know it has to go back to the standing committee. When the hon member for Yeoville moved that amendment, the hon members of the Government could have accepted it. The debate would have ceased and the Bill could have gone back to the standing committee as it would have gone anyway. After we had had the evidence and the discussions in the standing committee…

What was the motivation of the hon member for Yeoville?

You would not agree beforehand.

Order! The hon member for Cape Town Gardens is making his speech.

Thank you, Sir.

I want to respond to the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament. Would he deny that prior to today we asked whether the matter could be referred, and he then indicated it could not because he in particular wanted his pound of flesh and therefore he had to enter this debate today? He did not want the Bill referred forthwith. What did he expect the hon member for Yeoville to do? Did he expect him just to stand up and to move so that the hon the Chief Whip could continue with his diatribe?

The motive was obvious. The hon the Chief Whip, rather than allow a well-informed debate after the Bill had been to the standing committee, wanted a debate here today so that he could vent his spleen here before the Bill’s referral to the standing committee.

A second point which the hon the Chief Whip raised today was the question of the calling of the meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance. We know the rules. If that meeting of the standing committee had been called in terms of a notice that was not in accordance with the rules, we would have objected and the meeting would not have been held. I think that is self-evident. The fact of the matter is that we were given no advance warning whatsover until that Monday morning—this is exactly what I said last week—when we got to Parliament and found that it was on the Order Paper that there was a meeting called for the next day. That had not happened once before during the course of this session and especially not in the case of our standing committee. I would suggest that in previous years, insofar as all select committees were concerned there was always the tradition there had first been some discussion and after that one was informed that a meeting had been set for a certain date even if the notice only appeared on the Order Paper a day or two before. On this question, as in the case of many of the other facts he mentioned, the hon the Chief Whip was completely wrong.

I come now to the question that the committee passed the resolution unanimously in good faith, obviously in ignorance and without having the wisdom of the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament at its disposal. Then the hon the Chief Whip had discussions with the chairman of the committee and between them they decided that they knew better than the whole committee what was good for that committee. If there was anything that could represent a vote of no confidence by the hon the Chief Whip in that committee and in the members of his party who represent the majority on the one standing select committee that forms part of the standing committee, this was it. One could not ask for a better representation. He said that they did not know what was going on; in good faith they voted unanimously for the resolution, and he had to go there to sort out what was good for the standing committee.

I should like to say that the members of the standing committee had a greater sense of parliamentary tradition than the hon the Chief Whip had. I think it was a very sad state of affairs that he did not learn something from them. On the occasion when we met, as he correctly said, in good faith, those members and equally other members realized that they had been put in an impossible position by the arrangements that had been made and accordingly they tried to make reasonable provision so that the committee could do its work properly and not just be turned into a charade.

Going back to a couple of the points made last week in the debate on the motion of the hon the Deputy Minister, there are a couple of facts of which I think hon members should be aware in view of the limited number of speeches in that debate and the lack of opportunity, on that occasion, to respond to the matters raised. I shall quote from the unrevised Hansard. The hon the Deputy Minister, in that debate, said:

He was referring to the other Houses. The Minutes of Proceedings of the House of Delegates, page 187, says:

The Minutes of Proceedings of the House of Representatives of 30 May, page 174, said:

In fairness to the hon the Deputy Minister he did go on to say:

The fact remains that those motions were both moved without notice. So that is factually incorrect.

A second point, which is not the point on which this whole debate turns but which I think should be mentioned for the record, is that the hon the Deputy Minister said:

I agree with him that in previous years—in my limited experience—Deputy Ministers have often dealt with this legislation, if not always. What he should explain, however, is why, for the Joint Sitting of Monday, 27 May, the day we are talking about, the Second Reading of the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill, which was Order No 5, appeared under the name of the Minister of Finance. That is in contrast with today where the Revenue Laws Amendment Bill, for example, was put under the name of the Deputy Minister of Finance and also the Sales Tax Amendment Bill was put under the name of the Deputy Minister of Finance. So, I think he can hardly complain if, when we come to Parliament and find on the agenda an item unexpectedly under the name of the Minister of Finance, we approach the hon the Minister of Finance rather than the hon the Deputy Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance, of course, did not return to call of the hon member for Yeoville which compounded the problem.

The final point I wish to make in this respect concern the fact that it is agreed now and recorded that the motion was moved without notice in the other two Houses. During the debate last week I said:

The Chief Whip of Parliament interjected:

Sir, we must, in all honesty, ask ourselves what sort of agreement we are talking about. The hon Chief Whip has gone to great lengths today to explain how he consulted various people. There are various ways of consulting and there are various ways of getting agreement. I would like to ask that hon Chief Whip how long before that motion was moved without notice in the House of Delegates he consulted and supposedly obtained the agreement of the chairman of the select committee of the House of Delegates.

I do not have to report to you.

Yes. The hon Chief Whip is amazingly silent on my question. If he had spoken to him that morning, or the day before, or even hours before, he could easily have said: “A long time before”. In actual fact whatever the details—and I really think the minor details are not important—it is quite clear …

Then why do you nag about the minor details?

Because they are important in principle, and I am not talking about the exact number of seconds now. The fact of the matter is that, irrespective of what that hon Chief Whip tells us, shortly after these so-called agreements took place, those hon members were so dissatisfied when they discovered what had actually happened and what they had ultimately been advised to vote for that they moved the very opposite in their respective Houses.

When one looks at the Minutes of Proceedings of the House of Delegates for 6 June 1985, page 198, one can see under the entry referring to the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill, that it was moved by the Leader of the Official Opposition that instead of the Bill being read a second time “the order for the Second Reading of the Customs and Excise Amendment Bill be discharged ”

Mr Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon Chief Whip of Parliament allowed to interject and to hold a conversation across the floor while the hon member for Cape Town Gardens is speaking? [Interjections.]

Order! I did notice that it does take two to tango. There was a bit of conversation across the floor, but the hon member for Cape Town Gardens seemed to be handling it very well indeed. The hon member may continue.

Mr Chairman, I am glad to see the hon member slowly sliding down in his bench. I think that if he had any grace he would slide right under his bench and hide his face completely. [Interjections.]

As I was saying, the amendment moved by the Leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Delegates was:

That amendment was agreed to. There was no division, so I am not aware whether anybody voted against it or not. I suspect not. I would suggest that that was a very strange amendment to have been passed—probably unanimously—in a situation where everybody was consulted, where everybody agreed, and where everybody knew what was going on.

Then, in the Minutes of Proceedings of the House of Representatives, also for Thursday, 6 June 1985, page 187, we see that Mr C R Redcliffe, who is the chairman of the standing select committee of that House, moved an identical amendment, namely:

Again the amendment was agreed to, so presumably there was no division. To the best of my knowledge the amendment was unanimously accepted there.

So what took place in both of these Houses is really quite astonishing, Mr Chairman. The hon Chief Whip of Parliament had the agreement of both the Houses for the procedure he wanted to follow. He consulted them. They agreed. They moved motions. They all appeared to know what was going on. However, the end result was, once they discovered what was really going on, that they turned around and reversed the procedure. [Interjections.]

I hope this has been a lesson to the hon Chief Whip of Parliament—that he should treat all the members of all the Houses and Parliament itself with the respect they deserve as far as procedure and other formalities are concerned. The hon Chief Whip has not stopped muttering under his breath in the past few minutes, and I am glad he has taken a pause for breath now. He must know, however, that if he speaks to some of the other hon members in the other two Houses of this Parliament, he will find that there is dissatisfaction beyond just this Bill as to the way various things have been handled in terms of procedure. There has been dissatisfaction, for instance, in cases where they have been led to believe that they were required to do or not required to do certain things, and after the event discovered that something different actually pertained.

As I say, I hope that this sort of thing will not recur in the future. This matter should again be referred to the committee for further discussion, and so I have great pleasure in supporting the amendment moved by the hon member for Yeoville.

Mr Chairman, much has been said today about this Bill. When one looks at the schedules that accompany it, one can clearly see that there was a tremendous amount of information—as the hon member for Yeoville said—placed before the members of the standing committee. Still, I find it interesting to note this afternoon that, with the exception of the hon member for Gezina who made reference to the content of the Bill including the various clauses, none of the other hon members really got down to examining the Bill itself, and most of the discussion has been …

Did you not listen to me?

I listened to the hon member, but most of what he had to say was in regard to his particular amendment on the Order Paper and also the problems that had occurred in the Standing Committee on Finance.

I want to say that I believe that the standing committee system has really improved the workings of Parliament. I believe it has broadened democracy considerably, mainly because it has increased the participation of hon members in the discussion of the various measures that come before the standing committee. As the hon member for Cape Town Gardens said, there are hon members who are very conscientious and who work hard. I want to compliment that hon member and also the hon member for Yeoville. We completed a very complex Bill this morning on financial institutions and we were greatly aided by the hon member’s experience and the contribution he made to the debate in the standing committee.

I believe the Standing Committee on Finance is playing a major role in Parliament at the present time. For the first time hon members of Parliament can call an hon Minister to be present at a committee meeting so that matters can be discussed with him. This does not only apply to hon Ministers, but also to other experts and other persons who would like to put representations to the committee. We know how the standing committee system works today and I am sure that every hon member will agree that this is an improvement in the operation of Parliament. I believe that in time it will lead to far better legislation. However, this is just the first session in which this system has been operating and I believe we still have much to learn. We have experienced many problems. I think we will perhaps know better next year.

A subject which has been raised by the hon member for Yeoville many times is that of policy. Unfortunately, it appears that a feud has developed between that member and the hon the Minister of Finance, which I believe is most regrettable. I believe that, if the subject of policy is to be discussed, we have to have a clear definition of what it is that we really want to debate. I think the hon member for Yeoville will agree with me that there is a difference between policy based on a political approach to a problem and policy of a technical nature. This latter can perhaps be far better explained to the committee by the professionals in a particular field than even by the hon the Minister himself.

When it comes to political policy, I agree with the hon member for Yeoville that the hon the Minister should come to the committee so that the matter can be debated. I agree with the hon member, but as I say, this matter has developed into a feud. I would like to suggest to the hon member for Yeoville that perhaps, when we reflect on these matters, we should set up a procedure in regard to calling a Minister to a standing committee. I do not believe that it is fair, when the standing committee is actually sitting, suddenly to say that the Minister is needed, as has happened in the past and has again happened today. One cannot expect a Minister to appear immediately at the drop of a hat at the request of an hon member to explain a certain matter. The Minister may not even be in Cape Town.

I therefore believe that, if the system is to work effectively, we should perhaps in future devise a system whereby hon members who would like a Minister to appear should give a period of notice. The Minister should not only be asked to appear at a certain date, but he should also be given an indication of the subjects of policy, political policy or whatever, which hon members would like to discuss with him. I believe that, for this system to work effectively, there has to be a certain degree of courtesy and good manners exhibited by hon members in order to get the best out of the system.

The other problem which we have had—and I have mentioned this in the committee—is the time that the committee has to discuss or debate any Bill that comes before it. As I said earlier on, this is our first session under the new system. I sincerely hope that next year the hon Minister of Finance—unfortunately, the hon Chief Whip of Parliament has gone—will ensure that his financial Bills of a general nature will be brought to this House and to the standing committee much earlier on in the session. We all know—it has been said repeatedly here—that at this stage of the session all these taxation Bills are coming in, with the result that the Standing Committee on Finance is under much pressure. The objective is to get these Bills passed before Parliament prorogues. Therefore, I believe that financial Bills of a general nature should actually come up much earlier in the session. I believe this is something of which the hon Whips and hon Ministers concerned must take greater cognizance.

I should like to say to the hon member for Yeoville that he is a great one for exploiting any situation. We have seen very clearly—and I am sure the other hon members from the other Houses who sit on the committee have also seen this—the hon member’s expertise in exploiting any situation. He does not only expose the problems—of course, that is a good thing—but sometimes he also adds more problems to the functioning of the system. I believe that hon member should perhaps at times consider the other hon members in this regard by not complicating the issues but rather by being more helpful. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Cape Town Gardens said that the hon members from the other Houses were not fully aware—the hon member for Yeoville said it too—of the procedures. I remember the first day when this Bill was brought before the standing committee. We all agreed that the motions should go before the Houses because we in these benches realized that those hon members had not had sufficient time to look at the measures and especially the schedules—in fact, neither had we or anyone else. That was why we agreed; we actually had to agree. However, I want to say to those hon members…

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon member, firstly, if he was fully aware of what he was doing when he agreed that we should ask for the suspension of the Standing Orders. Did he know what he was doing? Secondly, have we not wasted time seeing that it is now two weeks later and we have still not considered the legislation in Committee, whereas we could have disposed of it if that resolution had been dealt with on the Thursday and the Friday?

Yes, I agree. Many of us were unaware of the finer details of what this was all about. As I said earlier on, we are in a learning process at this stage, but I also said that had we acted earlier and sought information from some of the officials of Parliament, this whole big row or indaba could have been sorted out quietly in a much more amicable manner.

As I have said, these schedules are quite substantial documents and the hon member for Yeoville pointed out how many pages they comprise. However, let us look at this measure and what it is all about. Let us also look at past debates. I honestly believe that hon members of the Official Opposition have made a mountain out of a molehill in this regard because all one has to do is to read past debates on this subject. The hon member for Gezina pointed out that the passing of this measure is now a purely academic matter because we are just implementing something which has already been approved by Parliament, namely the taxation proposals contained in the Budget. Therefore, when one looks at past debates and considers that there is a two-hour limitation on this debate, it becomes clear that this is not something of major consequence.

That is not true.

It is not of major consequence, and if one studies the hon member for Yeoville’s past debates on this subject—I read one of his speeches, as well as certain others, just the other night to see what he had to say on this—there is evidently nothing of major consequence in this matter because, as the hon member for Gezina said, it is purely academic. Therefore, I maintain that that hon member has made a mountain out of a molehill. We know that this measure will go through Parliament since it is implementing something which has already been approved.

I should just like to suggest to the hon member for Yeoville that, as experienced, astute and competent as he is, there are times when he could be making a far greater contribution in that standing committee in getting ideas and points across than he does. He really is a stirrer. We know what we mean when we say that we have a “Harry”. It means that we have a problem. [Interjections.] This is a standard term in Parliament today. People say that in the old United Party they had old Harry, and Harry was a problem. I am sure he is a problem in the PFP. It is time he stopped being a problem and I appeal to him in this regard because he has a greater role to play. Sometimes he muffs it because he just wants to be Harry. [Interjections.]

Mr Chairman, I just want to say something briefly in consequence of an idea which was expressed by the hon member for Amanzimtoti and the hon Chief Whip of Parliament. If I understood him correctly, the hon member for Amanzimtoti said that the present system with the standing committees was proof that democracy worked well in this new dispensation. In his turn the hon Chief Whip said that the hon member for Yeoville was only speaking for the gallery.

As far as this is concerned, I only want to say two things. In the first place, there was virtually no one in the gallery at that stage. Another important thing I also want to say, which we also said during the debate on the new dispensation, was that we were gravely concerned that the new dispensation as it was planned by the Government, actually sought to reduce public debate. Now things are discussed in the standing committees where the people cannot hear what is said—the NP prefers the word nation, but as far as I am concerned, it is our people—and South Africa is being governed by the mixed coalition cabinet, irrespective of what the hon member for Helderkruin said.

Today, in the entire tone of his speech, the hon Chief Whip of Parliament, who holds a very important office in the new Parliament and obviously is close to the Government, confirmed the concern we have, namely that the Government wants to minimalize open debate in which we do not speak for a gallery but where we speak on behalf of everyone who elected us—after all that discussion is one of the essential characteristics of Parliament. Consequently I am merely rising to say that in this regard we wish to express our strongest exception to any attempt by the Government to smother debate.

Mr Chairman, I must say that I was beginning to feel like the person who said: “Look, Ma, no hands!”, sitting here watching this like a tennis match with people going at each other, hammer and tongs on what, after all, is a customs and excise Bill. I shall try to deal with the contributions of hon members in the time I have available.

Explain to them why people do not answer telephones.

I shall answer the hon member’s charge. However, I should like to start by saying that I think the hon member for Amanzimtoti put the matter best when he said that hon members of the Opposition were making a mountain out of a molehill. I think one must get this thing in perspective. We are in a new ball game, it is the first session of this new Parliament and a tricameral system is not the easiest thing in the world to manage—particularly when all of us …

Are you only discovering that now?

No, the hon member must not be silly and read things into what I am saying. The reality is that our society is of a complex nature and we have come with a response which is reasonbly complex. The fact of the matter is that we are all new to it, even those of us who have been sitting in this House for a long time, and we have colleagues in the other Houses who are totally new to the procedures and conventions of Parliament. The fact of the matter is that the hon the Chief Whip of Parliament has an enormously difficult task. He has to get through the work programme of Parliament which has not diminished. As the economy and the scope and scale of the challenges of our country grow, so the whole Parliamentary programme of course grows commensurately. This hon Chief Whip has distinguished himself, I think, over the past few months in the way that he has managed the affairs of this Parliament.

Hear, hear!

I am not arguing with hon members who say that it might have been better if it had gone to the standing committee. It might have, and I am sure the hon the Chief Whip would have been delighted if he could have managed it, but the reality is that due to a set of circumstances which arose, some of which were errors, mistakes or misunderstandings, a fairly innocuous measure was going to be dealt with by the three Houses. They were given the fullest opportunity for a Second Reading debate, a full Committee Stage and a Third Reading. There was an enormous amount of time available. Two weeks elapsed before hon members even spoke to the officials of the Department of Customs and Excise. Hon members had the fullest opportunity to consult with them. I admit that it would have been better to have gone to the standing committee—let us accept that. These decisions are not decisions that the hon Chief Whip of Parliament can sit and contemplate. He often has to make a decision on the spur of the moment and quickly so as to make the necessary arrangements. I think that, instead of trying to punish him, as soon as members find that in their view—and I do not share their view—he might have arranged things differently, they should act in an understanding manner. Instead of acting in a way that shows appreciation for the way he has been conducting the affairs of Parliament, everybody holds forth and lets rip at him as if he is guilty of some terrible crime. We are not dealing with some highly controversial, highly charged measure, so that he had to use all the skill at his disposal in order to slip it through Parliament. Hon members know the hon Chief Whip too well. He is an old dog. [Interjections.] He is an old hand in the House. They say one needs an old dog for the tough jobs. The fact remains that he is an old hand at this, and if hon members think that he is going to use his power over an issue like this, they are mistaken.

He did.

All the hon Chief Whip was doing, was to respond to attacks upon himself. He did not provoke the situation and he did not try to make things difficult for anybody. Today, when he stood up to defend himself, it was alleged that he was looking for an opportunity of entering this debate …

He was too clever by half.

No, Mr Chairman. This hon Chief Whip has performed his job with great distinction, in my opinion. We on this side of the House appreciate that and we recognize the distinction with which he has led this Parliament. If it could have been handled differently, I am quite sure the hon Chief Whip would have been delighted.

In the two weeks that elapsed, nobody took the trouble to telephone any of the officials, with the exception of the hon member for Gezina. He was then attacked by the hon member for Cape Town Gardens for having done so. As soon as the hon member for Gezina thought that the matter was not going to the standing committee, he did what nobody else did …

But it is going to the standing committee.

I know it is, but at the time when he contacted the department, it was thought …

[Inaudible.]

It was before the other Houses had moved the amendment which they have moved. At that stage the hon member for Gezina contacted the department to appraise himself of the situation.

[Inaudible.]

No, I think hon members are being extremely unreasonable.

The hon member for Yeoville came here with a plethora of questions and allegations. He is again using extravagant language to describe things which do not justify that kind of language. He said the found this Bill “objectionable”, and that he “rejected it totally” …

I quoted Assocom!

Oh, Mr Chairman, if Assocom have a problem, then, as that hon member is aware, they know that my office and the office of the hon the Minister are open to them at all times. If they have a problem with technical arrangements like those we have here, in terms of controlling goods arriving and leaving this country and being cleared, then they know that all they have to do is to talk to us and we will set about trying to settle things amicably. They do not need to send the kind of telexes such as the one the hon member for Yeoville quoted from. I should like to see that telex because, as far as I am concerned, we have only the most amicable of relationships with Assocom. As a matter of fact, on the particular issue that the hon member for Yeoville raised, both he and Assocom are wrong.

Oh no, we are not.

Oh, yes, they are. The hon member was wrong, because third parties are not involved in the matters as put forward by Assocom …

That is not true.

Oh, yes. All that this has to do with is the problem the Commissioner is faced with at present, namely that the official who imposes a lien is called upon to identify the goods which were imported after the debt had arisen.

That is not true.

Yes. The discretion is vested in the Commissioner to decide whether or not to remove the goods forming the subject of the lien to the State warehouse, and his decision will depend on circumstances such as the safety of the goods and the reliability of the debtor. I am informed that third parties are not involved in any way as put forward …

Will you come and give that evidence to the standing committee?

The hon member will have the fullest opportunity to discuss the matter and call whomever he likes to appear before the standing committee.

I am inviting you.

I shall be delighted to attend.

The hon member also tried to create the impression that my colleague the hon the Minister is loath to attend standing committee meetings and claims to be busy and running around the country. As a courtesy to my colleague who is not here today to reply for himself, I want to tell the hon member that I know of many mornings when the hon the Minister said to me: “Would you please handle this for me this morning; I have to stand by in case the standing committee decides to call me.” I can tell the hon member that that has happened to me several times. Furthermore, as the hon members of the standing committee will know, on at least one occasion on which I was present the hon the Minister did spend almost a morning with the standing committee, as did the hon the Minister of Trade and Industry. I myself was also there. To pretend, therefore, that the hon the Minister rides cavalier fashion over the interests of the standing committee is so much nonsense. Obviously he is a busy man and, equally obviously, he would prefer notice. However, I want to tell the hon member that, whenever the officials or anybody on the standing committee have given him an indication that he may be called, as far as I am aware he has stood down and said to me: “Look, old chap: Will you not please go and handle this, will you not please see this deputation, because I have to be available in case I am called by the standing committee.”

The hon member also made an allegation, saying that what he found objectionable was the fact that we were not interested in the business community and disregarded the interests of the shoe industry. Is the hon member not aware of the fact that on 11 January, and again on 17 January, we in fact invoked article 19 of GATT in order to remove certain restrictions on shoes? We did in fact raise tariffs against the two categories of shoes with which the local industry had the largest problems. Furthermore, only yesterday morning I had representatives of the entire shoe industry in my office. We spent the morning together to discuss this whole matter. We decided what other representations were to be made to the Board of Trade in this regard. I want to tell the hon member that we also did not remove import control on shoes. As a matter of fact, the importation of shoes has been frozen at 1983 importation levels and the import permits are being allocated at 1983 import levels plus 20% in respect of certain tariffs. So, the imports have been frozen and two actions have been taken in respect of protection, including the granting of restrictions on certain categories of shoes. This involves talking to Geneva, discussing the matter and seeking the advice of our partners and of GATT itself. The Government acted in that regard. As far as the third category of shoes is concerned, we are currently locked in negotiations, and representations are about to be made to the Board of Trade.

Other hon members also asked questions in this debate and I should like to deal with everybody. I do not think I can spend all my time on the hon member for Yeoville. I think he will understand that. I may just refer to the question of rice which he also mentioned. He claims we have taken certain actions as far as rice is concerned. All that had to do with was a procedural problem in connection with the packaging of rice in 10 kg packets. The whole question of the importation of rice is a matter which is before the Board of Trade now. I spoke with them only yesterday about the matter. Hon members of the House of Delegates made representations to me which I sent through to the Board of Trade and they are currently looking at an application. They have not taken any decisions in that regard and that allegation of the hon member is simply not true.

He also asked how we could allow the importation of wheat…

I did not say that. I asked whether farmers were satisfied with the fact that this had been done in the light of the situation last year.

My reply to that is that they are satisfied. The wheat which was imported was imported as cattle and stock fodder at 20% below the world market price of maize. At that time, because of the drought, we had insufficient maize for cattle fodder in our country. It could only be imported with the permission of the Wheat Board anyway. The Wheat Board has to grant a permit for such imports. The same applies in the case of olives. Before olives can be imported, approval must be obtained from the Minister of Agricultural Economics.

The hon member went on about the excise duty on petrol, but the excise duty on petrol was simply equalized with the excise duty on imported fuel. That is all that happened, and the price of petroleum did not go up as a result of that. I do not know what the hon member is complaining about.

If the hon member for Yeoville will forgive me, I now want to deal with some of the things other hon members said.

Why do you not want to deal with the question of scrap metal?

I know what the situation is with regard to scrap metal. I have visited McKechnie, been over their factory and have spoken to their directors. They have told me their whole problem and we are dealing with these things from day to day.

Then deal with it.

We are.

*The hon member for Sunnyside said that the hon the Chief Whip had spoken at length and said nothing. However, the hon the Chief Whip was only reacting to attacks which had been made on him because of the action he had taken. That was all he was doing. He was not picking a quarrel. He has tried to manage the activities of Parliament to the best of his ability, and I believe that he has done a good job. I take exception to the fact that the hon member for Sunnyside said that the Government was trying to rush the legislation through and that we were hiding things. I challenge him to give me one example of anything which we are trying to hide in this legislation. It is easy to say such things and then to be touchy when we react to them. I think it is disgraceful that people should say such things in this House. The hon member also said that we were ignoring Parliament. Surely that is not true. If the legislation had not gone to the standing committee, that would not have meant that we were ignoring Parliament, because then it would have gone through all the stages through which legislation has gone in Parliament all these years. The hon member is a front-bencher and I have no wish to be rude to him. He did everything in his power to thwart the new Constitution at the time. He was fully entitled to do so, but here we now have an opportunity to deal with a Bill in the traditional way without submitting it to a mixed standing committee, but now he is taking the strongest exception to that, as though we were trying to do something terrible. I cannot understand such logic.

The hon member for Gezina gave us a very lucid explanation of the committee system of Parliament, and I want to compliment him on that. It is true that a great deal of our important work is going to be done on the standing committees in future. It is members such as that hon member, who make a study of legislation, who take the trouble to acquaint themselves with the proceedings, who remain informed of what is going on in the country and who try to obtain all the available information, sometimes without making a great fuss about it, who are making the greatest contribution to the functioning of Parliament and the improvement of the country’s legislation. I want to thank him for that.

With reference to clause 1 of the Bill, he spoke about the list of names available at airports and asked whether sufficient measures had been taken to exercise control over goods and passengers entering our country or people coming here on a visit. I just want to tell the hon member that it is no longer necessary for the pilot of the aircraft concerned which has landed here from abroad to hand over a list of passengers and so-called sealable goods, because that information is available from the companies themselves, since it is stored in the computer. We can obtain that information at any time by means of the computer, and for that reason, it is simply administrative red tape to expect the pilot to hand in such a list every time. We really do not need that fist any more, because stringent control is exercised. The airlines co-operate very well, and it is really not necessary to burden the pilot with that red tape.

†I did say, as the hon member for Cape Town Gardens said I had said, that there was notice, and that is true. It was a slip of the tongue and I did not mean it. The hon member correctly quoted my Hansard. What I meant to say was that there had been consultation, but he quoted quite correctly from my Hansard. I do not think it is necessary for me to react further to the speech of the hon member because he and I have already exchanged views on the whole matter. I think it would be a waste of time for us to spend any more time on this matter.

I think I have replied to all hon members who participated in the debate, and I thank them once again for their contributions.

Mr Speaker, I move:

This Bill is the direct result of the recommendations of the Select Committee on Rent Control contained in its second report, 1983. This select committee inquired, inter alia, into the desirability of statutory rent control and measures to afford tenants continued protection against exploitation, victimization and arbitrary ejectment. It also inquired into measures to curb malpractices with regard to the Sectional Titles Act, 1971, and the Share Blocks Control Act, 1980. This last part of the investigation is of importance with regard to this Bill.

*In its first report in 1983 the select committee recommended that certain provisions be inserted in the Sectional Titles Act in order to promote stability and security of occupation among tenants of a building in the event of a conversion to sectional title. The aim was to promote stability and security of occupation among the tenants without prejudicing the rights of the owner of the building.

The general opinion was that this could be achieved by giving the tenants in the building the right, at the time of conversion, to purchase the units occupied by them before these were offered for sale on the open market.

†These recommendations were accepted and the Sectional Titles Act was amended appropriately during 1983. Sections 4(2A) and 8B of the said Act now contain the provisions which give effect to the relevant recommendations.

As I have already said, the select committee also inquired into certain malpractices with reference ot the Share Blocks Control Act. Evidence was given before the select committee that people turned to the Share Blocks Control Act in cases where the developer or the owners of share blocks wished to exercize control over new buyers in a scheme in order to maintain exclusivity or where, in the case of rent-controlled property and leasehold land, it was not possible to grant ownership under sectional title.

*It was found that from the buyer’s point of view, share blocks had certain disadvantages, notably that ownership of the dwelling unit concerned is not obtained. Consequently it is not possible for every individual to obtain a building society bond to finance a purchase transaction and he or she must, together with other shareholders, share the risks of a bond which secures the property as a whole.

The select committee therefore came to the conclusion that from a buyer’s point of view sectional titles are preferable to share blocks. The select committee arrived at the further conclusion that although the amendments recommended in respect of the Sectional Titles Act might in themselves remove some of the main reasons for the use of share block schemes, developers themselves could still revert to share blocks in an attempt to evade other obligations imposed by the Sectional Titles Act which they might find inconvenient.

The select committee, in its second report during 1983, therefore recommended that the Share Blocks Control Act be amended so that the measures amending the Sectional Titles Act, as recommended in its previous report, to afford tenants and buyers of dwelling units additional protection, be made applicable mutatis mutandis to a proposed share block scheme.

This recommendation was referred to the Standing Advisory Committee on Company Law and the necessary adaptations have been made to sections 4(2A) and 8B of the Sectional Titles Act in order to accommodate them in the Share Blocks Control Act. It is important to note that we are dealing here with two different systems. The one is based on ownership and the other on share holding with an accompanying contract, the so-called use agreement. Adjustments were therefore necessary, but an attempt was made to leave the relevant principles unchanged.

†These measures are embodied in the Bill which is now before us and can be summarized as follows: An obligation is placed on the share block company to hold a meeting with and to inform all tenants in the building of the proposed share block scheme before it is commenced. The Standing Committee on Trade and Industry wisely added to the Bill in this respect by compelling the share block company, when giving notice of this meeting, to supply each lessee with a copy of the use agreement in which all the particulars of the share block scheme and the rights attached to the shares are spelt out. In this way every tenant can ensure that he is well informed on all aspects of the share block scheme as well as his rights with regard thereto.

The second important principle embodied in the Bill is that the tenant in the building is now afforded the opportunity to buy shares in the share block company, which will confer upon him a right to or an interest in that part of the building occupied by him. He is allowed a reasonable period of time in which to make his decision.

In cases where the premises are subject to rent control, one year is allowed while in all other cases the period will be three months. A tenant who does not wish to purchase the shares is afforded a period of six months after exercising his discretion to obtain alternative accommodation. During this period his rental may not be increased and he may only be required to vacate the building if he for instance fails to pay his rent or causes material damage to the building.

The last important principle relates to tenants who are 65 years of age or older. If such a tenant’s income falls within the limits applicable to tenants who can claim rent control protection, provision is made that such shares may be sold to him only. This limitation naturally only applies for as long as he continues to occupy the relevant part of the building and his income does not exceed the relevant maximum amount. The standing committee made an important addition to this provision in order to make it even more fair. According to this amendment the protection will also apply to the spouse of the lessee in the event of the latter’s death or in the event of the lessee divorcing or deserting the said spouse; provided, however, that they both occupied the premises concerned at the time of the event and that the spouse or surviving spouse is also 65 years old or older and that his or her income is such that he or she can claim rent control protection. This is, of course, only applicable in those cases where the lessee did not accept the offer to buy the share concerned.

I would like to support these improvements made by the standing committee.

Second Reading resumed

Mr Chairman, the Select Committee on Rent Control in their second report recommended certain measures to afford tenants protection in buildings that were being converted to a share block or to a sectional title scheme. The Standing Advisory Committee on Company Law which had the task of reviewing the Share Blocks Control Act, also agree with the measures that were proposed by the Select Committee on Rent Control. Hon members will also be aware that virtually identical legislation was passed in this House last year as regards the Sectional Titles Act.

There are really three main provisions in this Bill. The first one is that a share block company must give lessees certain information before a scheme is implemented. [Interjections.] A representative of the share block company must call a meeting of lessees at which they are notified of the content of this scheme. [Interjections.] The standing committee, when it deliberated upon this section, also passed an amendment that the content of the use agreement applicable to a share block scheme must also be made known to lessees. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon members are talking too loudly. The hon member may continue.

Thank you, Mr Chairman.

A second main provision of the Bill is that the lessee in a proposed scheme must be given the right or the option to purchase shares in this scheme which will in turn confer upon him the right to continue occupying that section of the dwelling which he has been occupying. In respect of rent controlled premises he has 365 days to exercise this option; and in respect of other premises he has 90 days to exercise this option. Where a lessee decides not to exercise the option, he is allowed 180 days on the premises before he must vacate the flat he occupies.

A third main provision of the Bill is that if the lessee is a protected tenant, the shares in the share block scheme can only be sold to him for as long as he continues to occupy the flat in question. The standing commitee introduced a new amendment to the Bill in this regard which afforded similar protection to the spouse of a lessee in the case of the spouse’s being left alone because of death or divorce or desertion. With regard to this amendment passed by the standing committee, I must point out that Sapoa voiced certain objections, but we on this side of the House are happy with the Bill as it stands.

Having said those few words, I conclude by saying that we will support the Bill as it is.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Pietermaritzburg South put the matter in a nutshell. The changes he mentioned were indeed all that was at issue here. [Interjections.]

The principal Act first saw the light in 1980 because certain problems cropped up owing to the fact that not all blocks of flats could fall under sectional title. When this Act came into operation there were flats in Durban which were built on leasehold land. One could not get a sectional title on the building, because it had been built on leasehold land. There were also certain buildings which did not comply with the regulations of the relevant city councils. One could not register sectional titles with regard to these buildings either. These were then the factors which gave rise to this Act.

The people who lived in such buildings were then in trouble because, owing to the fact that they wanted to use the flat, they bought shares in companies which owned these buildings. The people who controlled the companies used the money in a way which was not in the interests of the people who lived in the building and whose money it actually was. This led to the Minister saying at that stage that there were certain offences and malpractices and this Act was then introduced to protect the residents of such a building against the directors of the company. The content of the Act was chiefly that when a person had a company which was connected with a block of flats, that company could only run the block of flats and could not engage in any other activities.

It is interesting that this Act was published after there had been six different draft Bills. The committee which dealt with it at that stage said that they did not foresee that there would be any exploitation in practice. Today, five years later, we see that there was in fact exploitation in practice. Certain adjustments had to be made to protect those people who were already in the building before it was registered as a new share block. This gave rise to this amending Bill.

Mr Chairman, the hon member for Heilbron has just indicated what the objective of this amending Bill was while the hon member for Pietermaritzburg South actually indicated how this amending Bill was trying to realize this objective.

In this Bill a dualism—I do not want to call it a conflict—has been built in between the company as the owner of such a share block and the lessee. As was indicated, this Bill seeks to protect the lessee with regard to various facets. When one tests the protective measures built into the legislation by the objectives, it seems to me as if the measures will be so successful that the lessee will be reasonably well protected against the actions of the owner.

I only have one problem and it concerns people who are 65 years of age and older who must also be given the opportunity to buy. As far as I am concerned the question is just whether people in that category are always going to have the financial ability to do so.

I am under the impression that in future we are going to have the position in this country that we will probably have to subsidize aged lessees. I know there will be immediate protests about this, inter alia as regards the enormous scope of the work this involves, but I believe that if each case is handled individually, it will in fact be possible in practice to pay a subsidy to a lessee in that age group. In that way he will be assured that when he has to vacate those premises in any case because he cannot buy it, he will be so accommodated elsewhere that he will be able to live decently.

We on this side of the House believe that the measures for the protection of the lessee are of such a nature that the legislation will probably be adequate for a few years until the owners think of another way of getting rid of these people. Consequently we support the Bill.

Mr Chairman, we in these benches are satisfied with this Bill in that it gives protection to respectable tenants against these rather rapacious landlords who want to get an old building and make a small fortune out of it, and in the process push these people out on to the street. We quite obviously support any Bill which protects respectable tenants.

However, we also bear in mind that the respectable landlord must also be protected from time to time. This is generally taken care of because most legislation does look after the landlord in preference to the tenant.

In this instance I feel it is fair towards the share block system that the tenants should be given the opportunity to purchase then-flats and should in fact be given first opportunity to do so. This is allowed for in this Bill.

A point that is of particular interest is the availability of flats for the people who are over 65 and that they cannot lightly be evicted. The amendment, of course, is most acceptable because the remaining spouse of the tenant also needs to be protected.

Therefore, as far as we are concerned, this is a satisfactory Bill but I should just like to point out to the hon the Deputy Minister that rent control is still with us in spite of what he said some days ago. As far as I am concerned, I will be very happy when rent control disappears altogether and the responsibility for looking after people who need help is in the hands of the public in general and particularly not in the hands of landlords.

Mr Chairman, I thank hon members for their support of this measure. The hon member for Pietermaritzburg South sketched the whole background to this measure and the hon member for Heilbron added to that. I thus believed that it is not necessary for me to go through the whole background to this measure. However, there are a few things which I believe I should say because there have been at least three attacks, if I may call them that, on this measure in the Financial Mail over the past three weeks.

The last attack on this measure was in an editorial under the heading “Rent control sneaking back”. The impression was created that this side of the House was now, by the introduction of this Bill, attempting to reintroduce rent control somehow. All kinds of allegations are made. They say for example:

What utter twaddle, if I may say so! The whole history of this side of the House over the past few years is one of deregulating the property industry as far as sales of public housing and rent control are concerned. The only reason why this measure is before this House now is actually as a result of a benefit bestowed on the industry because they could not do sectional title developments on flats that were rent controlled or on flats in which individuals stayed who qualified as protected tenants. What happened then? They came with requests, and may I add that the Select Committee on Rent Control received 450 pieces of evidence. The Government then agreed that they could go ahead and do sectional title developments even if there were protected tenants in the building but that the Government would make protection attendant only upon those people who qualified for the protection. Furthermore, the Block Shares Act would be brought into line with the Sectional Titles Act. That is why this amendment is now before this House.

Therefore, I think that these allegations—if they are being quoted correctly by the Financial Mail—are nonsense. However, I believe one point which they raised perhaps deserves analysis. They say that according to Sapoa it is not quite the same as the Sectional Titles Act with which we purport to bring it into line. They say that in a block share development, if a particular flat is occupied by a sitting tenant who qualifies for rent control—a protected tenant, in other words—then one cannot sell the shares of the flat in which that person has right of occupation. In other words, they say it is different from sectional title because with sectional title one can sell the flat even though there is a protected tenant in the flat. However, of course the successor in title has to deal with the fact that he has a protected tenant in the flat and therefore he might not be able to have beneficial occupation.

Not in terms of section 39(1).

The hon member for Hillbrow must just hear me out and then he will understand what I am saying.

One now has the situation with the Share Blocks Control Act that a development company which undertakes a development may not be able to wind up its affairs, because there might be two tenants remaining who have passed on their right of beneficial occupation to their spouses, so it could take the company, formed only for that particular development, 20 years to wind up its affairs. I think it would therefore be a good thing for us to refer the matter back to the Standing Advisory Committee on Company Law to look into this. I personally see no objection to the shares being sold, provided the protection remains. Let the chaps wind up their companies. As long as the protection remains, there is not objection.

I have in fact already referred the matter back to the standing advisory committee and asked them to look at this aspect of things again and I may come with an amendment which we can then look at next year during the next session of Parliament. In my view the Bill can go forward as it is. There is no specific date set for it, because as hon members know, the State President will sign the Bill on advice given. So, I think what we should do, is to let the standing advisory committee look at this problem. The Bill can be proceded with and perhaps we can look at that amendment next year, if it is as innocuous as I think it would be.

So to that criticism I would agree, but it is not fair that Sapoa should make this kind of allegation through the Financial Mail. On the subcommittee of the Standing Advisory Committee on Company Law, Sapoa have four representatives and on the Standing Advisory Committee itself, Sapoa, Assocom, the Law Societies and everybody is represented. They missed this particular issue, just as everybody else missed it. With the benefit of hindsight people have noticed this particular anomaly, and it can be dealt with. However, to elevate the whole matter to the extent of saying the Government is now sneaking back, wanting to reintroduce rent control, is utter twaddle and I have informed those concerned accordingly.

Mr Chairman, may I ask the hon the Deputy Minister to clarify a statement alleged to have been made by him in the Press? Does the Government intend implementing the provisions of this Amendment Bill as soon as it has been passed by the State President?

Yes, we do; as soon as it has been signed by the State President. However, the question is when we will put it before the State President.

I understand that a Press statement allegedly made by you, cast some doubt on whether the Government intends implementing the amendment Bill before us. I just want a clarification.

We do intend implementing the Amendment Bill. The question may have arisen when I said we have two choices: Either we can hold up the Bill and let the standing advisory committee look at it and then bring an amended Bill next year, or we can allow the Bill to proceed and bring an amendment next year.

In my view we should allow the Bill to proceed and bring the amendment next year. I do not want to bind the hands of the standing advisory committee. I have asked them for advice on the matter, and that is my opinion, and I shall deal with their advice when I receive it.