Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, it was pleasant to see today that the hon. the Minister still realizes that there is a Parliament in South Africa to which the Railways are to a certain degree accountable, because the way matters have developed recently, most things in the sphere of the financial administration of the Railways are taking place outside Parliament. We find that increases in salaries and rates are announced and then Parliament is expected to approve them ex post facto. The hon. the Minister does of course have my sympathy, for I cannot see what else he can do since he has to run the Railways and determine the financial policy of the Railways as a member of a Cabinet and within the framework of a policy responsible for the financial misgovernment of South Africa. With this stop-go, stop-start economic policy which is so characteristic of this Government, it is almost impossible for most of the businessmen in South Africa to determine their policy and to plan their business projects properly. A few years ago the hon. the Minister said he appreciated that changes in the salary structure and the rates of the Railways would have to be brought about every four years. I do not know whether he still remembers that. I fear that as a result of this Government’s policy, that period is becoming shorter and shorter, and year after year it is in fact becoming more and more difficult to plan the Railway’s financial administration in advance. I want to express the hope that the hon. the Minister’s expectations for the new financial year will be realized. At the same time I want to express the conviction that in two years’ time he will again experience problems owing to inflation and lack of control over the value of our money. It is matters of this kind which we want to discuss and for which the Minister will have to account.

I want to say immediately that what we welcome in the proposals of the hon. the Minister, is the relief which is envisaged for the pensioners. We on this side of the House would like to express our appreciation and support for anything done to ease the lot of these people. I think the hon. the Minister deserves appreciation for the generous provision which he made for improving their lot. I always find it pleasant to be able to say something good about the hon. the Minister’s Budget. I listened carefully and did manage to find something good, but I am afraid that there are also other matters which we want to discuss with him and which cannot be discussed in the same friendly atmosphere. To allow him some rest before having to hear these things, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, I find something very strange in the hon. member for Durban Point. Reference has already made to it in this debate. He has the ability to whip up emotions about every possible matter in this House. When this debate was adjourned, the hon. member for Durban Point had just taken part. Hon. members may now listen to the kind of statement he made. He spoke of “Iron curtain methods” and of “Iron curtain”. The concept of an iron curtain is a very unpleasant one in terms of the meaning the world assigns to it today. To go and label a measure, the objects of which I clearly explained in this House, as an “iron curtain” type of measure, is in my opinion very irresponsible. I think it is very unreasonable, as far as the country at large is concerned, to give that kind of label to this measure, which is a protective measure for them. The hon. member spoke of “censorship”. Surely there is no mention whatsoever of censorship in this legislation. It is surely very unreasonable and very irresponsible to label this measure a form of censorship. I again just want to reiterate what I said to the hon. House on a previous occasion. The procedure up to now has been to advertise, and then the National Transport Commission is applied to for a licence to introduce certain services. All they are now doing is to ensure that those who advertise in the newspapers first obtain the necessary licence authority from the National transport Commission. That is all we are doing. I simply cannot accept the fact that it is labelled an “iron curtain” measure and “censorship”. I give him credit for more responsibility than such a statement is worthy of. He speaks here of the “banning of information”. Can hon. members grasp what “banning of information” means? What is the hon. member trying to achieve with that? What is he trying to do? What is his purpose? What is his intention as far as that is concerned? I have stated very clearly that we are dealing here with the measure for the protection of the air travellin public of South Africa. We are dealing with the measure that must protect people against unscrupulous exploiters. When we do this, the hon. member says we are engaged in the “banning of information”. The hon. member moved amendments, and on a previous occasion I very clearly gave my reasons why those amendments are not acceptable. Either they are already contained in the Act or they contain a principle which I cannot accept. Up to now the position in this country has been that the National Transport Commission is autonomous. We do not, by means of this legislation, now want to restrict that autonomy.

There is one other matter I want to refer to, although it is not directly concerned with this measure before the House. Because of what was said in the House I must, however, make a correction. Hon. members on the other side included charter flights in the discussion, which is completely unfair. A great issue was made of the fact that charter flights would supposedly be so much cheaper now than scheduled services. A great fuss was made about that. I must point out to the House and to the travelling public that there is also something called group rates as far as the South African Airways is concerned. The group services of the South African Airways are cheaper than the majority of charter flights. Because what else is a charter flight? It involves a group travelling as a group and therefore subject, as such, to cheaper, group rates. But exactly the same privileges are available at the South African Airways, and since the debate has developed along those lines, I find it essential to point out that injustice, because those privileges also exist.

May I ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question? I put something to him yesterday afternoon in the debate. He will recall what it was, namely whether if a non-scheduled airline operating between, say, Swaziland and Luxemburg wanted to place an advertisement in The Cape Times, would it first have to have the authority of the National Transport Commission? Would he please answer that now?

Yes, I apologize. I did not reply to the hon. member, because I put my note aside. The question was phrased quite differently the last time the hon. member for Kensington put it to me.

Do you want the Hansard?

No, I have not read the hon. member’s Hansard; I remember distinctly what he said. He asked whether it was an offence for The Cape Times to publish an advertisement for any airline, possibly the example he quoted now. Obviously it is not an offence for a newspaper to do that. We place no onus whatsoever on a newspaper. But on the other hand it would of course require the permission of the National Transport Commission to publish any advertisement for a flight which is meant to draw South African passengers. If it originates or terminates outside the borders of South Africa, we do not of course have any jurisdiction over that whatsoever. But if it does terminate within the borders of this country, or leaves from any place from within the Republic, they will obviously have to have the permission of the National Transport Commission.

May I ask the Deputy Minister another question? Will the Deputy Minister kindly explain a little bit more about carrying South African passengers?

It means nothing more than what I have said. It means that, if any airline flies a connection from anywhere in South Africa to any other place, whether the flight is chartered, scheduled or whatever, I accept that it is carrying passengers from South Africa. Perhaps I did not use the correct term by calling them South African passengers. I really meant passengers from South Africa. If any airline, whether it flies a chartered, a scheduled or any other service, flies passengers from inside South Africa to anywhere else, it comes under this Bill as it is now phrased. First of all, the original Act already provided for certain classes of airlines. This is merely extended by the proposed new section 2A as far as the advertisements are concerned.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister did not reply to the query which I put to him about the interpretation of the English term “authorized agent” and the Afrikaans term “gevolmagtigde”. Perhaps he will deal with that later. I wish to come back to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s reply. He has said that the objectives of this Bill have been clearly explained by himself. Yet when we accept the hon. the Deputy Minister at his word and we say that, if those are his objectives, let us limit this Bill to what he says are the objectives, he rejects the amendment we move. Therefore I must say that by his own refusal to accept the amendment, by his own rejection of that amendment, the hon. the Deputy Minister makes us reject the reasons which he gives for wanting this legislation. If this legislation is required, as he says, only to protect travellers against unscrupulous agents, our amendment makes that possible. If the hon. the Deputy Minister wants more powers, to do things other than those which he claims he wants to do and pretends he want to do—as we must assume from his rejection of the amendment—then we must assume that the reasons given do not cover the motive. My amendment covers every single object which the hon. the Deputy Minister wants to achieve through this measure.

That is what you think.

The hon. the Deputy

Minister has not shown in one single way why the objectives he aims at cannot be achieved if he accepts my amendment. If he could show us that by accepting this amendment, he would stymie any of the objectives that he is aiming at, if he could show us that, by accepting this, he could not achieve what he is aiming at, we could debate the matter intelligently. At the moment the hon. the Deputy Minister is not debating; he is not giving us any reason at all for his rejection of the amendment other than to say that it is not necessary. Let him give this House one reason why each of the three restrictions proposed here cannot be accepted. Let him give us one reason why the acceptance of any of these limitations on the commission would prevent the achievement of the objectives at which he is aiming. Then we can talk about it. We cannot debate intelligently when there is no intelligent argument put forward from the side of the hon. the Deputy Minister. It is typical of the attitude of the Government that, when they come to the House with a measure, they say: This is what we are going to do and we are not interested in reason, logic or anything else—“ons is die groot baas en ons gaan dit deurforseer; ons het die stemme; ons het die mag”.

*What we have here once more is one of those cases where we try to debate in a reasonable manner the merits of a case but the Minister is not prepared to debate it. He simply says: “It is not necessary and I do not accept it.”

He furnished his reasons.

He has not yet furnished a reason why the acceptance of this amendment is going to thwart his aims.

†Now let me come to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s reply to the hon. member for Kensington. He has not, in fact, replied to him at all. Does he not understand the question put to him? In terms of the proposed provision, would it be illegal for somebody to advertise in The Cape Times a flight from Swaziland to, say, Luxemburg? He says that it will not be illegal for the newspaper, that we cannot control flights outside South Africa and that only if they leave from within South Africa will they fall under the provisions of this clause. It is not so. I have here with me The Sunday Tribune dated 4th March in which an article appears. I say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that when this Bill is passed an offence would have been committed in terms of this article. An offence would have been committed because in terms of the provisions of the Bill it would have promoted the sale of seating accommodation. It would have encouraged people to look for the Luxavia opportunity to fly to London via Luxemburg at R395 instead of R529. It would therefore have contravened the law by promoting and drawing to the attention of the people the opportunity to fly cheaper than they can under normal fares charged by the South African Airways. By referring to London-New York and London-Venice flights it would be tantamount to promoting flights. Therefore, whether or not that flight originates in South Africa this would create an offence for any journalist, newspaper, any travel magazine or anyone other than a registered airline who put out any advertising material at all, even the advertising of an internal flight in America, an internal flight in Europe or a flight from London to the North Pole. This would be promoting flights without the permission of the commission. I do not know how to get it through to the hon. the Deputy Minister that it is not practical to limit writings in magazines, publications, leaflets and trade adverts in the way in which this seeks to do it. It is not practical and it is not realistic. He is aiming here at one group of people, namely pseudo travel agents in South Africa. In aiming at them he shoots with a scatter-gun at any sort of information coming into South Africa. Then he takes exception when I talk of the Iron Curtain and censorship. It is not what the hon. the Deputy Minister intends, but it is what he is achieving. He must not come and squeal to me when I talk of censorship or the Iron Curtain when it is his Bill which is creating that situation. The hon. the Deputy Minister knows or should know that this measure will in fact prevent South Africans from receiving information on the sort of flights which are available to them overseas.

Unless the hon. the Deputy Minister can indicate to us some reason other than that the Big Broeder wants this power and is not prepared to bend one inch on it, we cannot accept that the reasons he has given for this measure are the real reasons for which he wants it. It goes far beyond that and our amendment gives in fact the powers that he is asking for.

Mr. Chairman, I want to come back to the question put to me on a previous occasion by the hon. member, relating to the English translation of the word “gevolmagtigde”, namely “authorized agent”. It is merely a matter of phraseology, Sir. There is no single English word for “gevolmagtigde”, to the best of my knowledge. “Authorized representative”, “authorized agent”, or whatever the case may be, would be the translation of “gevolmagtigde”. I am not a linguist, and that is the information that was made available to me. Perhaps the hon. member knows better; I do not, unfortunately, or at least, the sources available to me do not. “Gevolmagtigde” in Afrikaans includes an agent as well, so therefore “authorized agent” is the exact interpretation of the term “gevolmagtigde” in Afrikaans. As I have said, this word in Afrikaans includes an agent, and “gevolmagtigde agent” would then have a double meaning; it would be repeating what was already said. “Gevolmagtigde” can be interpreted as “gevolmagtigde agent” or “authorized agent”. It means exactly the same thing.

Sir, I now come to the hon. member’s next point. The hon. member for Durban Point blames me for a lack of intelligence, but I am trying also to bridge the intelligence gap on his side. I have explained in the clearest possible terms exactly what this clause means. I did so during the Second Reading and I did so again in this Committee. I have stated the reason why the hon. member’s amendment is not acceptable to me. Let me go into this once again. The hon. member, in his amendment, states that “such authority shall be granted …”. He binds the National Transport Commission. I have already explained the accepted principle and I am not prepared, by means of this legislation, to change that principle. The accepted principle is that of autonomy for the National Transport Commission. I cannot possibly use this legislation before the House at the moment to change that principle. I do not intend changing the principle because I want the National Transport Commission to judge whatever application comes before it, and to judge it purely on merit. I am not prepared to accept the amendment because it does limit the judgment of the National Transport Commission. It forces, it orders the NTC to do certain things and it takes away its discretion in that regard. I cannot accept that principle. I am trying to explain this to the hon. member. Secondly, I pointed out that what he intends in the second part of his amendment, namely his proposed subsection (2)(b), to follow subsection (1) of the proposed new section 2A, has already been incorporated in this clause itself. Thirdly—and this also answers the hon. member for Kensington—part three of his amendment deals with journeys originating and terminating outside the borders of the Republic, and limits the provisions of the proposed new section to the Republic of South Africa. Here he refers to publications, etc., referring to such journeys. But, Sir, that is self-evident.

Is it?

Yes, emphatically yes. I must explain again that the NTC has no jurisdiction whatsoever outside the borders of this country. In the case of the particular sort of flight referred to by the hon. member for Kensington, a flight originating somewhere beyond our borders, to another point abroad, we have no jurisdiction over that whatsoever. It is quite outside the jurisdiction of the N.T.C.

But can it be advertised?

It can be advertised. We have no jurisdiction over that whatsoever. It can be advertised.

But that is not in the Bill.

But it is there, Sir. If hon. members cannot see it, I do not know how I should explain it to them. I am trying to satisfy them in regard to every little objection they are raising, but I do not know what else I can do to explain this to them. I repeat that the NTC only has jurisdiction within the borders of this country, and not beyond our borders. The only necessity for this clause …

You are quite wrong.

Sir, how do I bridge that intelligence gap? I am trying to explain the position. I have done so repeatedly. I was accused of not having read the clause, but quite obviously hon. members on the other side have a preconceived idea about this clause; they are not prepared to study it and to understand what is contained in the clause. How can I assist them in any way?

Will you please read 2A(1)(a)?

I will come back to that. Sir, let us go back to the clause. I have tried very hard to explain it. This clause, with due respect, should be read in its entirety. It is not subdivided into separate subclauses. One should therefore read the clause as a whole—

Tell us what that means.

I have already said that this refers only to South Africa, for very obvious reasons. Then it goes on to say—

Then there are certain exclusions in respect of licence-holders. That is the important point which is completely overlooked by hon. members. There are certain exclusions for people who already hold the necessary authority in terms of other provisions in the existing law.

That does not apply to our argument.

Then I cannot see the hon. member’s argument; that is the problem. This relates only to a single fact which I wish to state most emphatically once more. The position up to now was that anybody could publicize or advertise a flight; anybody could collect deposits from people, or even the full price of the ticket, before applying for a licence or before getting any authority whatsoever for such a flight. We are merely changing the sequence of the procedure now. Before a person is allowed to advertise or to sell tickets to the public or to collect deposits from members of the public, he has to have the authority of the NTC. After he gets their authority, he is free to advertise to the public any form of cheap air travel, provided …

May I ask the Deputy Minister a question?

I will give the hon. member an opportunity to do so in a moment; let me just complete my argument. He is free to do so provided he has the necessary authority, and provided again that it is a flight which terminates or originates within the borders of the country. This is merely changing the sequence. He has to go through all the procedures first. We are merely changing the sequence in this respect that he now has to have the authority of the NTC before he advertises the flight to the public. In my reply to the Second Reading debate I very clearly pointed out to the House the sort of problem that we are faced with, the sort of experiences we had in the past, and I want to emphasize again that I have a responsibility to the public of South Africa to protect them against this sort of thing; it has got to be done, and we are doing it by means of this Bill, and nothing more can or should be read into the Bill than merely this.

Let us agree with the hon. the Deputy Minister when he says that this only applies within South Africa. He will recall that yesterday afternoon I put to him what I told him was a fairly paraphrased version of the proposed new section 2A(l)(a). Let me put it to him again …

Order! I hope the hon. member is not going to repeat all those arguments.

No, Sir, I am not going to repeat them; I want to put my argument in a different way because the hon. the Deputy Minister does not seem to have understood it yet. He seems to be lacking in understanding, so I am trying to help him in the light of what he has just told us. Let us put it this way, and we will use his words, “within South Africa”. I would be glad, Sir, if he would just look at 2A(1); he will agree with me then that my paraphrasing is fair: “Within South Africa”, I suggest we say, “no person shall without the authority of the National Transport Commission make known by any means that any person is willing to undertake the conveyance of any person in the performance of an air service”. Does he agree that that is a fair paraphrasing of this paragraph for the purposes of my argument? He must; it is fair.

Why pick your own words? Why not read what is here?

I am looking for a specific application. This is what I am arguing. Now, if this is correct, and he cannot argue that it is not correct, let us first remember that an “air service” in the Bill is not defined as an air service within South Africa or originating within South Africa or terminating in South Africa. In other words let us come back to the example I put to him earlier. If the operator of a non-scheduled airline or air service between Swaziland and Luxemburg, or Lourenço Marques and Luxemburg, wants to advertise such an air service in a South African newspaper, does this not fall within the ambit of what I have put to him, that within South Africa no person shall without authority make known by any means that any person is willing to undertake the conveyance of any person in the performance of an air service? Of course it means that. How can he say otherwise? That is precisely what this says.

It controls the agency, not the press.

The hon. the Deputy Minister knows, as I have said, that the definition of an “air service” in the original Act does not confine itself to air services which originate or terminate here. Let me read it to him—

Now, in the light of this, is this hon. Deputy Minister prepared to give this House the unqualified assurance that it will not be necessary for authority to be obtained from the National Transport Commission by publications which wish to advertise non-scheduled trips from outside our borders, perhaps just outside our borders, to anywhere else in the world? Is he prepared to give us that assurance specifically?

Why do you want to protect them?

No, it is not a question of protecting anybody. We want to know what this law says. If he says this is his intention, to allow this sort of advertising, that is certainly not what the Bill says but it is what the amendment of the hon. member for Durban Point proposes. Then, why is he not prepared to accept the amendment? You see, Sir, we seem to be pushing our heads up against a stone wall. He keeps on talking past our arguments. But even as I put this to him again, he does not seem to react. I am glad the hon. the Minister of Transport is here, because this is a serious matter. It affects newspapers and publications generally and they will want to know exactly where they stand. We must insist that this hon. Deputy Minister reply to us, or if he cannot answer adequately, the hon. the Minister should come into the debate and tell us exactly what this means. If he did not understand my paraphrasing and he would like me to read it again, I will gladly do so because this is a matter of immense importance.

Of course the principle of this Bill has been accepted in the Second Reading, but in submitting our amendments to the hon. the Deputy Minister we were trying to put into practice what he had actually said. He has said here this afternoon that it does not concern air service outside this country. Of course he talks against his own arguments because one of his big worries is the air services that operate from Lourenço Marques to elsewhere. It is quite clear from the Bill that this in fact affects all services, and as the hon. member for Kensington says, most publications are going to be in a most difficult position on interpretation of this particular clause.

And the publication takes place in South Africa.

Yes, if it takes place in South Africa or, as I have said before, if it is advertised in a magazine which is printed overseas. It often happens that a magazine like Time has quite a number of South African advertisements in it. They may publish the fact that there is an air service operating from Lourenço Marques to Europe and advertise the rates for that particular service. They would be committing an offence under this particular Bill.

Nonsense.

That is what it says.

We have come forward to try to assist the Minister by moving our amendment. What he wants to do is to protect the legitimate user and the person that wants to go about it the correct way. We want him to do this to assist those legitimate organizations who in the past have gone the right way about it and have organized charter flights or group flights. He wants to protect the public as far as the fly-by-nights are concerned but he does not say so in the Bill. But in our particular paragraph (b) we give him that let-out by providing for a substantial deposit and that substantial guarantees be provided. That protects the man in the street against the fly-by-nights. All the way through we have tried to assist the hon. the Minister but he now puts a measure on the Statute Book which will not work out and which will embarrass most legitimate travel agencies who have international connections. They will be placed in a most difficult position. If we as the S.A. Airways advertise in New York or anywhere else—forgetting about our scheduled flights—if one of our pamphlets advertises a flight within the Republic which is a non-scheduled flight or a group flight, one may get away with it in New York, but what if they retaliate and say: “You do not allow us to do this in South Africa, so we will not allow you to advertise in our country”? That can happen. We have had retaliations before. As was said during the Second Reading by the hon. member for Durban Point, we have gone too far in this Bill. What the hon. the Minister wants to do we are trying to put right in this amendment. Unfortunately I do not know why he does not see the light and why he does not appreciate the fact that he is going too far in this measure. We do not want to make fools of ourselves. Do not let us put measures on the Statute Book that we cannot put into operation and dare not put into operation. It is no use putting a measure on the Statute Book and the Minister having to come here next year and tell us that there has been a test case and his legal advisers say the Act has to be amended. Surely, this is the time to examine the law properly, even if we delay it, or even if the Minister decides to withdraw it at this late stage for that purpose?

Mr. Chairman, may I put it very clearly to the hon. member for Salt River that if, at any stage, I have any intention of doing more than this, if I find it necessary in future to go beyond this, I shall have the freedom to come back to this House to ask for permission to do so. At the moment this is intended for one purpose only and that I have stated repeatedly. If at any stage in future I find it necessary for various reasons, which I do not have at the moment, to go beyond these limits, I shall have the freedom to come back to this House to state clearly what my intentions are and I shall then ask for amending legislation. At the moment it is very clear that this is not the intention. I cannot see why hon. members keep on reading more into this Bill. Let me go through this once more.

Order! I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister is not going to repeat all the arguments. I have heard those arguments at least four times. I shall appreciate it if the hon. the Deputy Minister will abide by the rules of this House.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for your guidance. I shall twist my argument a little in order to make it easier. I want to penetrate the mind of the hon. member for Salt River.

You will never succeed!

We already have complete control over all flights terminating in or leaving South Africa. At the moment anybody can advertise any future flight. Any theoretical flight can be advertised. The only thing we are doing is to make sure that whoever advertises any such flight has the valid authority of the National Transport Commission.

But why do you not state that?

That is exactly what we have stated. The hon. member for Kensington is trying to belittle me by questioning my inability to grasp reason or even to understand phraseology. I have been in this House long enough to take any kind of belittlement from his side. He will not hurt me. I have been a politician long enough. If he wants to belittle me, he can do it as much as he likes to—it will not hurt me.

Why do you not answer our arguments? [Interjections.]

If the hon. member will read the whole clause, he will see that it is obvious that certain exclusions are incorporated therein. Those exclusions only refer to licence-holders within the country. It is quite ridiculous to say that this clause intends going beyond that. The exclusions are only in regard to South Africans. The clause only refers to licence-holders of flights to or from South Africa. If anybody reads more into this, I do not know how I must try to assist him or how I can try to penetrate his lack of understanding. I cannot assist hon. members any further. Mr. Chairman, you would not allow me in any case.

Mr. Chairman, I shall be very brief. The whole point which the hon. the Deputy Minister is trying to make seems to be based on the fact that jurisdiction applies to flights which take place to or from South Africa. But can he still not see that that is not the point of the argument? According to this amendment the National Transport Commission is given jurisdiction over publication within South Africa of details of flights anywhere. That is exactly what it says. Does he not see that? It does not appear as though he sees it. In that case we cannot argue any further. However, I should like him to give us just one assurance, namely that it is not the intention to limit this type of advertising or any publication of details of such non-scheduled flights. Is he prepared to give us that assurance?

I have already given that assurance.

Amendment put and the Committee divided:

AYES—37: Bands, G. J.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Fourie, A.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H.; Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Raw, W. V.; Smith, W. J. B.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Taylor, C. D.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: A. Hopewell and J. O. N. Thompson.

NOES—91: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Brandt, J. W.; Coetsee, H. J.; De Jager, P. R.; De Villiers, D. J.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Grobler, M. S. F.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Muller, S. L.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pansegrouw, J. S.; Pelser, P. C.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Prinsloo, M. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C; Schlebusch, J. A.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C; Van Wyk, H. J.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, B. J.; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, S. F. Kotzé, P. C. Roux and G. P. van den Berg.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman, this clause provides that “any person who fails to comply with an order or direction of the commission shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding R1 000.” One of the most important elements of the law generally is that it should be certain. The public should know beforehand precisely what the legislator enjoins them to do or forbids them to do. The offence, especially if it is a criminal offence, should be clearly stated so that everybody knows what that offence is—otherwise you either have anarchy or despotism. Here we have a condition that you commit a criminal offence in respect of which you may be fined R1 000 if you do not obey and comply with an order or direction of the commission. What sort of orders and directions does the commission in fact give? The commission gives a direction when it hears applications for licences or for the renewal, alteration or transferring of licences or the exemption from any of the provisions of this Act or conditions of the licence or on behalf of any interested person requesting the commission to make any order or give any direction. In other words, these directions that it might give in respect of licences, if these are not complied with constitute an offence. Let me put it another way. What this means is that we are not stating here that X, Y and Z are offences, or that a particular behaviour constitutes an offence, but we are saying that the commission may, in its discretion in all sorts of circumstances, decide from time to time what would be an offence in terms of the law. In other words, the National Transport Commission is here entitled, upon application for licences under the Act, to declare from time to time that something is a crime, or that something can become a crime, and a fine of R1 000 is imposed. This is not just a bad law; it is also an extremely bad principle. If you do not comply with the direction or order of the commission in respect of the granting or renewal of a licence, in respect of a condition of that licence or whatever, then the National Transport Commission has the power to withdraw or refuse the renewal of that licence; it has the power to do something about it. To make it a criminal offence is ludicrous and absolutely unacceptable. That the offence should be stated clearly in the law, that it should be known to all and should then be punishable by the courts is a principle which has been well known throughout the centuries. This is so fundamental that it does not need any elucidation. As this measure stands at the moment, it is objectionable, but there may be just some aspect of this which has escaped our notice and perhaps the hon. the Deputy Minister can indicate to us that what I have said is not so, and if it is not so, why it is not so.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to refer the hon. member to section 3(l)(d) of the principal Act. For the sake of completeness I should just like to read it to the hon. member. It deals with the functions of the commission in relation to applications. Subsection (1) reads as follows—

And now I shall read paragraph (d)—

Please note: “any order or direction”—

The principle that the commission may give certain directions in terms of section 3(l)(d) has already been accepted, but it was an oversight in the Act that no penal provisions were included in this connection. All that is being done here is to attach, with reference to section 3(l)(d) of the principal Act, where in principle the commission already has powers of direction penal provisions to those powers of direction. The hon. member must of course remember that anything of this kind will in the nature of things come before a court and that the court has a discretion in the matter. It is not necessary for me to tell him that. This, therefore, only refers to section 3(1)(d) of the principal Act.

Mr. Chairman, I accept that, obviously, this has to come before the court. That is not the question. The question is: What is the offence? We do not define here what the offence is. What this clause says, is that the commission can decide from time to time in its absolute discretion what are to be offences, by saying: This is to be a condition; this condition is to apply to the licence; this condition to the use of a service. It can make any direction it likes as to how the operator, who has the licence, is in fact to operate. If that condition is transgressed, an offence is committed. It is true that the offender has to go to court, but that is not the point. The offence is created by the commission.

I want to go a little further. The hon. the Deputy Minister has dealt with section 3 of the Act. But I would like to ask him to have a look at section 7 of the Act. Subsection (3) thereof provides—

If they ordered someone to pay R200 deposit, as is the normal practice, then in terms of the provisions of this clause it would lapse if they did not do so. But if that order is not complied with by the applicant, they would in fact commit an offence. The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot say that they will not be prosecuted, because they will in fact be committing an offence if this legislation is passed. It is not the hon. the Deputy Minister’s department who will decide. Any member of the public, an objector, who is in competition, could then lay a complaint with the police that in fact he did not deposit the R200. He has therefore committed a prima facie offence and the police will then investigate the matter and a prosecution might take place. But most certainly it will take place in respect of the breach of a condition of a licence. Surely this is once again taking the matter much too far. Does the hon. the Deputy Minister propose that in respect of every licence that is granted, whenever the local transportation board imposes a condition in respect of that licence and that condition is broken or not complied with, does he in turn …

The local transportation board does not issue air licences.

I know that. I am talking about road motor transportation licences. The principle is exactly the same. Is it now proposed that the breach of the conditions of a licence for road motor transportation by a local transportation board is also going to constitute a criminal offence? Surely not. As matters stand at the moment, a breach of those conditions reported to the local board or the National Transport Commission will result in that licence being suspended, withdrawn or not renewed. There is action that can be taken irrespective of the licence. But this is not a matter where the public at large is being offended against. This is a matter where there is an application for a trade licence. That is all. The National Transport Commission in its discretion says that you can have that licence upon certain conditions. Now he breaches that. It is a matter relating to that licence. It is a commercial matter. He has the licence at the discretion of this board. Now it is to become a public criminal offence.

Mike Mitchell is too clever by half.

The hon. Leader of the House may make these remarks about me. I am happy to be a butt for his ready wit, but this does not answer the question and I hope that the hon. the Leader of the House will perhaps indicate to the hon. the Deputy Minister how he should have answered the question in the first place.

Your arguments are so far-fetched.

They are only far-fetched because this is a far-reaching clause. It says that the breach of a condition is a criminal offence. What is the criminal offence going to be? There is no one that can answer that. There is no one here that can say what sort of conditions are going to be imposed in every case. The National Transport Commission itself could not tell you. The chairman of that commission could not now pass a note to the hon. the Deputy Minister and tell him, what the position would be in respect or every one, because every application is considered on its merits. Both sides are heard, the objectors and the applicants. There are circumstances which arise in every case which are different. No one can tell you what the offence is going to be. But the principle is there. Does not the hon. the Minister appreciate that it is a bad principle? There is a remedy. Why is this necessary? Why can the National Transport Commission, as it stands now, not use its power, if there is a breach of a condition imposed by it, to either nullify the licence or suspend it, or deal with the operator in some other way?

According to your argument there would be no sanctions clause.

But surely. Sir, the sanction is that because you have breached the conditions of your licence, you are no longer able to operate on that licence? That is the way to deal with it, surely? As I understand it, they have that power, but if they do not have that power, then they must have it immediately. They must have the power then to suspend the operation on that licence, because a breach of the licence would have occurred. I would have thought that once such a condition were breached, the holder of the licence would no longer be entitled to operate. That is the way to deal with it and if they do not have that power, give them the power. Do not, however, let us give the National Transport Commission the power to create an offence carrying with it a fine of R1 000, because it imposes conditions according to its own whims, entirely in its own discretion. This situation is untenable at the moment. We have not had a satisfactory explanation from the hon. the Deputy Minister yet. I hope that he will be able to give us a satisfactory explanation, otherwise we shall have to vote against this provision.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has referred here to the whole question of the suspension and cancellation of licences. May I just say in passing that the Motor Carrier Transport Act is by no means before the House at the moment, and therefore I do not intend to reply to that in any way.

But the principle is the same.

I do not intend to debate the Motor Carrier Transport Act in any way. At the moment I have the Air Services Amendment Bill before me, and I am prepared to debate that principle. If the hon. member will look at section 17 of the principal Act, he will note that it deals fully with the whole question of the cancellation or suspension of licences. If he will page back to section 3(l)(d), he will have to agree with me immediately that there is no penal provision for any oversight committed in terms of that section. If, for example, one fails to act in terms of a direction given under section 3(l)(d), no penal provision is attached to such failure to act. The hon. member will readily grant me that. I shall mention to him two examples of what can happen. The commission may, for example, issue an instruction to someone to appear before them and that person may refuse to do so, in terms of this section. What remedy does the commission have? What penal measures can be applied? Nowhere is there a penal provision providing for such a case. Let us take another case. A licence may have to be returned to the commission within a certain period because it has been cancelled, and the holder of such a licence may refuse to do so. What power, in terms of section 3(1)(d), does the commission have at the moment to take action against him? What penal provision is there? The purpose of this is very clear. It is simply to attach a penal provision to a direction given by the commission with regard to section 3(1)(d). Once again not half of the spectres which have been seen by the hon. member, are present here; this is simply not the case. The intention behind this relates to section 3(l)(d) of the principal Act only.

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause 9:

Mr. Chairman, could the hon. the Deputy Minister explain to us again, in satisfactory terms, the reason for removing the right of an applicant to obtain a licence 12 months before the expiry of his existing licence? The only reason given in the Second Reading Debate was that this right was not used very much. But it does appear to be a privilege which people have at the moment and which cannot create insurmountable difficulties or problems for the department. Without arguing the point any further, I would be grateful to know whether the hon. the Deputy Minister could motivate the reason for taking away this right from applicants.

Mr. Chairman, one of the most important reasons is, in the first place, that no use whatever has been made of this privilege of 18 months. In practice no use has ever been made of the 18-month provision up to the present.

Never?

Not at all.

Then I am satisfied.

Secondly I may just add that the commission intends to introduce now uniformity in cycles, and in additional cycles. They therefore intend to introduce a uniform provision for a period.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move as an amendment—

Mr. Chairman, I have carefully considered this amendment in all its aspects, and I think that I shall be able to meet the hon. member for Green Point. I am prepared to accept this amendment.

*The reason is as follows. We have investigated all the possibilities which might occur when an officer is discharged from the Force on account of ill health. I just want to say for the record that the procedure which is followed in connection with medical unfitness, is the following: If the district surgeon or another doctor should express the opinion that the member of the Force is medically unfit for further service, he makes out a clinical report and supplies a prognosis which is submitted to the head office. A medical board is then convened to which two doctors are appointed. The minutes of the medical board are subsequently forwarded by the Commissioner of the South African Police to the Secretary for Health to inquire whether or not he agrees with the findings and recommendation of the board. The Secretary then submits the matter to the Minister. In the light of this very thorough procedure there is no possibility of some future illness being used for the purposes of a discharge. In these circumstances we shall accept the hon. member’s amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hon. the Deputy Minister for accepting the amendment and also for his explanation. The possibility of lack of fitness during the period of his employment with a department of State is one which concerns every State employee. With the acceptance of this amendment, there need be no fear now of all the financial consequences of a premature retirement from the Force. That situation can only arise when in fact the man is found to be unfit; in other words, his services will be retained in the Force up to the very time that he is found to be unfit. I thank the Deputy Minister for accepting that amendment. It will reassure members of the Force.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with an amendment.

Sir, there is an interesting provision here in subparagraph (c) of the first paragraph of this clause. I refer to the provision for the storage of arms and ammunition by licensed dealers and registered gunsmiths. This raises the question which was raised when the Act was amended, when the first amnesty was granted, and that is whether or not it is not desirable for this provision to be extended not just so that licensed dealers and registered gunsmiths may in fact store arms and ammunition, but whether there should not be a repository provided by the State for arms to be stored. I want to say that the persons who are the most concerned, who are the first to be affected by the theft of fire-arms, are the police themselves. They are usually the people who are at the receiving end of the bullets that come out of those stolen weapons. It is not good enough that the Act, properly interpreted—and the Commissioner of Police agrees with this—does allow one to leave one’s fire-arms with a friend for storage. Although he is in fact not the licensee, you may leave your fire-arms with him. But, Sir, that is not good enough. Your friend may leave and leave your fire-arm in his house and his house may be broken into. No doubt if you take your arm along to a gunsmith or a licensed dealer, he may agree or may not agree to keep it for you; he may or may not charge you a fee. But in our view the public should be entitled to have access to a repository provided by the State, Obviously, Sir, the police station is the proper place for it at the moment, but the police have difficulties as well in providing facilities for arms to be locked up in strong rooms; they would also have the difficulty of keeping a register of them, etc., and they have enough to do already without having to do this as well. On some occasions it depends entirely on the facilities which are available at any particular police station as to whether or not, when a man goes away on holiday, for example, he is able to leave his arms with the police for safekeeping until his return. That depends entirely on the facilities available at the police station. Sir, this is an important matter. The object of this Act is to control the licensing of arms and also to ensure that they do not get stolen or go astray. I hope that the hon. the Minister will give us some indication as to what sort of regulations he has in mind in respect of gunsmiths and whether he will give consideration to the whole question of the State providing for a repository for arms when people want to go away from home and want to leave their arms in safety.

Unfortunately I do not think that the proposal by the hon. member for Durban North is completely practical. What happens at present, is that there is a proper repository at each police station for the arms of the Police, and the Police are prepared to keep the arms of individuals, of people who go on holiday, in that repository. But a general State repository would involve major expenditure and one would not know for certain how many rifles, revolvers, etc., one would have to provide for when establishing such a repository.

As far as this particular subsection is concerned, it is only concerned with the storage of weapons and ammunition by licensed dealers and registered gunsmiths. Previously it was not necessary to have a regulation in this regard. Under the original Act, before this amendment, the position was such that when a licence was issued, certain conditions were laid down for the storage of the fire-arm. Initially the legal draftsmen thought that it would be more practical, for the simple reason that each dealer had his own specific premises, with his own specific problems, and that it would then perhaps have been easier to attach the conditions to the licence. But after the Act had come into operation it was found that it was better to make provision for the general storage of fire-arms by way of regulation, so that one could have a general repository and could lay down conditions regarding storage. As regards the other aspect, gunsmiths, of course, have never before been subject to licensing at a fee, etc. That is now being introduced. A registration fee is now being required from gunsmiths as well. That may be found at the top of page 6 of the Bill, and consequently storage regulations are also being laid down for gunsmiths. I think the hon. member for Durban North raised an interesting point, but I do not think that it is a practicable one.

Clause agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

The hon. the Minister for Transport yesterday said that we did not have to work hard in this House. He has forgotten what it is like to be in the Opposition!

Sir, when this debate was adjourned I had dealt with the question of our objection to this Bill based on the practicability or impracticability of clauses 2 and 5, apart from any other objections, and today I want to take that a little further. I want to look at the reality of what we are being asked to pass here today. We imposed in the original legislation—the law as it stands today—under section 10(1) an onus on any person who moved his residence, to notify the department of such change of address. We were agreed on that; there was no argument. We believe that when a person changes his address, there should be a legal obligation on him to notify his change of address. We were agreed on the principle that wherever it was possible to find other means of tracing changes of address they should be used. However, when the original Act was adopted we said that the onus it placed on a landlord was not realistic and not practicable. Therefore we opposed the provision. We said that landlords were being asked to do something which in practice would not work. We are now being asked to extend that. There was an option for the landlord. He could either notify or he could wait a period and verify whether notification had been given and then he had to act. A further option is now being added, the option that after 14 days he shall verify notification and within 28 days he shall notify. In other words, it is simply a change in the form of notification, which the hon. the Deputy Minister told us is based on representations made by the landlords, through their organization, and accepted by the Government. The existing system did not work—the fact that it did not work is admitted by the Government by the suspension of this provision by the State President …

It has not been suspended.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has said that this has been suspended. I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether section 10 of the Act has been suspended by the State President.

He does not know.

It has been, yes.

Yes, it has been suspended. In other words, the hon. member who interjected and said that it has not been suspended is, as usual, talking through the back of his head. It is no wonder that he is in such trouble in his constituency for making irresponsible remarks!

This section of the Act has been suspended. In other words, it does not work and even the Government accepts that it does not work. They are now coming along to say that they are not only going to reapply it, but they are going to make it even more difficult to apply by instead of 45 days, limiting it to 28 days. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a question when he has finished educating the hon. member who incorrectly interjected. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister how many notifications the Department of the Interior received before the suspension of this provision. Did any landlord notify changes of address or, in fact, did they have no notification in terms of this provision? The hon. the Deputy Minister cannot tell me; he does not know, and I do not blame him. One cannot expect him to know everything. However, the fact is that landlords simply did not notify. What are they now being asked to notify? The amendment in lines 24 and 25, which we are now being asked to add, reads—

Those are the two particulars, and the address would obviously be the third which the landlord will have to notify. The hon. the Deputy Minister says that is going to be easy. The landlords have agreed that they would simply send along lists of their tenants. Of course, that is not going to help the hon. the Deputy Minister at all. What is the practice? The practice throughout flats’ administration in South Africa …

Let me interrupt myself at this point and point out that a large percentage of South Africa’s White population today live in flats. I have tried to establish the percentage, but it must be something like 30%, or more, of the White population. In my constituency it is 100%, but of the whole of South Africa’s White population a large percentage live in blocks of flats. When a person rents a flat, the procedure is that he or she goes along to the agent, signs a lease, pays a deposit and is given a key to the flat. On that lease is the name of the tenant who signs the lease. In 99,9% of the cases there is only a limitation as to the number of people who may occupy that flat. With a house there is not even that limitation. But the agent does not know who lives in the flat with whom. It could be Mr. and Mrs. Jones. If hon. members on the Government side have never done so yet, they should try canvassing in flat-land some time. On the board they may find the names of “Mr. and Mrs. Jones”. But when they get inside they will find that it is Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith who are living together and are known as Mr. and Mrs. Jones but because of what was then Government policy, they could not afford to get married because they would have lost their pensions. You might find a Mr. Kruger and Mrs. Ponsonby-Smythe living together under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Kruger. Hon. members realize that the landlord does not know this. He signs the lease with the tenant but now he is being asked to examine the identity documents, the book of life, of the tenant and anyone else who lives in that building in order to enable him to fulfil the provision which we are being asked to add, and to furnish in that notice the full name and identity number of such persons. In the first place he is going to find some objection from some of the female tenants, because his Government has now made it so that the identity number immediately discloses the age of the tenant to start with. So every caretaker and every agent is going to be able to establish not only the marital relationship of his tenants, but their ages too. If this is not an intrusion into the privacy of South Africans, I would like to know what is. Not an official for the purposes of official duty, but a landlord, or a letting agent or a caretaker of a flat or a supervisor, will be entitled to pry into the marital status of all his tenants and to establish all their ages. I have even found that in filling in voters registration cards people are not prepared to leave their cards with the caretaker to be collected because they do not want the caretaker of their block to know these personal details where they may not in fact be married or where they do not want to let them know their ages or their personal history. That happens quite often.

You are now talking about owners and not about caretakers.

The owner must act through his agent.

Who said so?

Eighty per cent of blocks of flats are owned by companies. These hon. members who come from the bundu have never seen a block of flats, but their they try and talk on a measure of this nature.

From the “deep platteland”.

Order!

I invite that hon. member to come to Durban and see what a block of flats looks like. I shall take him around and show him some blocks of flats. I shall show him that in many of these flats there is not a resident caretaker. They are therefore administered not by an owner, not by a company which is a body of people, but by an office in town to which they pay their rent and from which they obtain their lease in the first place. There is no personal supervision. But now we are asked to make those agents or their caretakers responsible for establishing this information. Again, what happens in practice is that modern estate agents who handle letting, work on computers; they computerize the information and if you ask for a list of the tenants of a building they can get that out by pressing a button. That is the list, I submit, which they have offered to send to the department. Is that so?

Yes.

The Deputy Minister says that is correct. This amendment we are being asked to pass is to the effect that they can send these lists to which I refer and which contain the lists of tenants to the department. That list is quite useless in that form, because that list will not have identity numbers on it. It will only have the name of the person who signed the lease and his initials. I have worked on these lists and have tried to marry a list of tenants of a block of flats to a voters’ roll where there are only some 14 000 names to look at. You find in practice that it does not work, because you can have some four or five Mr. J. Smiths or four or five J. Bothas, or Krugers. In some constituencies …

[Inaudible.]

… for instance, when you go down to the bottom end of mine you even find so many Daan van der Merwes but you have to go pretty far down Point Road to find them! These lists are not going to provide the information. What is more, in many modern blocks of flats which are not rent-controlled, the post-1966 flats, the turnover of people in those buildings can be anything up to 400% a year. Your total population can change four times per year in a block of flats. This will create a tremendous problem for the department, but it is also an impossible problem for landlords. If they are going to keep up with this continual change and are going to have to record all the tenants and notify the department thereof it may give some of the information but it will not work as envisaged. What we will then find is that the population register, like the voters’ roll, is going to become “shambolic”. We will find the same sort of thing as we now have on the voters’ roll, namely that four, five or six families are registered at the same address in the same flat with one bedroom. Agents and landlords are going to be notifying the moves inwards each time—if they are doing their job. So they will notify that Mr. Jones moved in in January. At the end of February they will notify that Mr. Van der Merwe has moved in. At the end of March they will notify that Mr. Smith moved into the same flat. Now, within a year you can have four or five people that have been notified as being resident in that flat. However, unless they have been picked up elsewhere, they are still going to be registered there. So your population register becomes, like the voters’ roll, a mass of irrelevant and inaccurate information. Surely, what we are aiming at is an accurate population register one which will be effective. We are going to have to find some other way, other than this. It is so easy to pass a law—we simply debate it; we all vote and it becomes law. We have masses of laws which do not work. I would rather see this House trying to find a method which is going to be effective, efficient and which will give correct information, instead of having something on paper which looks nice through passing a law knowing that it is not going to solve the problem.

Why don’t you suggest something?

I was coming to that. When we criticize, we usually make constructive suggestions. When the same problem was investigated by a select committee on the Electoral Act, we went into this very thoroughly. We found that there was one way in which you could rely on information, namely if you could get it from official and semi-official sources. Every person who moves into a block of flats, has to pay a deposit if he is charged directly for his electricity, or he has to pay a water deposit if each flat has its own water meter. It certainly applies to every house. If they have a telephone, they have to apply to the telephone department. So already you have three official sources which most tenants are obliged to notify when they move from point A to point B. These are official sources that must make out documents. If they make out a telephone receipt, it is easy for them to put in an extra piece of carbon to get an extra copy of that receipt which could then be sent to the department.

Ask Charles Henderson.

Yes, it might obviate certain hon. members of the Other Place getting accounts for R1 400 for briefly being absent from their flat. However, as I was saying, these are official documents which are made out. It would only mean that an extra copy would have to be made. As it is an official document, it will have on it the full address and the name. All that would have to be added, would be the identity number. You would then be able to get the information without having to disclose it to private people who have no right to that information. It would be disclosed to officials in municipal or State departments who, by the nature of their work, are used to dealing with confidential information. It would not hurt the tenants, if the person who filled in the application for a telephone happens to know that he was not married to his assumed wife. It would not harm him in his social life or in his local community. By placing the onus on people under whose control they must live month in and month out, you are interfering with their privacy in a way which can be harmful to them. Whether we like it or not, despite the laws we pass, if a caretaker of a block of flats does not like someone, he can get rid of him in one way or another and if he is shocked to find that Mr. Kruger and Mrs. Ponsonby-Smythe, who are living together as Mr. and Mrs. Kruger, are in fact not married, he could get rid of that person. Through official channels, through government sources, you could still get the same information. Therefore my suggestion is that we should rather seek the solution through all the official channels which today control every person’s life. Radio licences, motor licences, all these things have to be renewed; they have to be recorded. These are all things which people require. One must have water and light. Many people must have a telephone. These are things they must have and therefore they must go to the specific source. That source can then supply the information easily; it is preferable to a business or private source with which the tenants are in almost daily contact. If this were done, not only could the population register be kept in some sort of order, but the voters’ roll as well. The original Act, inter alia, provides—

The proposed amendment to subsection (2) adds the words—

Now, in many cases that person who consented to such residence is not in a position to do so. It does not say “or his agent” or “or her agent”. It is the person who consented to such residence. If hon. members let their homes to come to Cape Town for the session, they have given their consent to the use of that house, but they do not handle it themselves. They are sitting here in Cape Town. It is handled by an estate agent. But we are placing the onus on the person who consented to such residence, which is in fact the owner, and not that person’s representative. Who is the person who gives consent to somebody sentenced to imprisonment when such a person goes into prison? Is the officer commanding that prison the person who consented to his taking up residence in that prison? I give this as one of the many cases where there is not a person who consents. What about if one of these banned students moves from one house to another? If they move into a new house this cannot be notified because they cannot be quoted. Who is going to notify this? But let us take a more serious line. What about all your large institutions such as university residences, boarding schools and other large institutions? The same is going to apply there. I think we are chasing the wrong end of the stick in trying to solve the problem through this amendment. We cannot handle the existing documentation. We cannot handle the existing paper work in the department in respect of the register. And if we cannot handle what we have already, why now go and flood it with millions and millions more pieces of paper when those bits of paper are not going to give us the answer we are looking for? Until we have the population register working more or less smoothly and the basic record is there, let us not chase shares as to how we are going to alter things which are not yet there to be altered. I think we are being over-hasty and this clause should remain suspended as it is at the moment, until the department is in a position to receive this information. I suggest that we should then seek that information from official sources. We have other objections to the Bill, but I will leave that to my colleagues to deal with. I hope that perhaps I have given the hon. the Deputy Minister some food for thought in respect of this particular problem of notifying changes of address.

This afternoon the hon. member for Durban Point tried to put an alternative proposal to the House in connection with the notification that must take place, as he calls it, through official channels. If we turn our attention for just a moment to the hon. member’s proposal, he himself will see how ridiculous it really is. The hon. member mentioned quite a few official channels, for example where a deposit must be paid for water and lights, telephones and so on, which means one would have to furnish the information at all these places. In other words, since according to the proposed amendment a person can be asked for his identity document by the home owner or his representative to determine whether he has given notice of his change of address, notice must now be given at three or four places. According to the hon. member’s own argument …

Then one makes sure three times over?

Yes, wait a moment. I shall now tell the hon. member why it will be necessary to make sure three times over, but then the hon. member contradicts himself. The hon. member specifically says he does not want other people to have these private documents for inspection. For example, a man by the name of Raw is living with a Mrs. Kruger, and that type of thing. Now he must go and give this same explanation three times over. In other words, he has three times the embarrassment. There are many blocks of flats in South Africa, and I can tell the hon. member that I shall return to the United Party members in the Christiana constituency and I shall tell them the hon. member for Durban Point regards the Christiana constituency as the “bundu”. I shall very definitely do so; I can tell the hon. member that.

Who said that?

The hon. member for Durban Point said it. I come from the Christiana constituency and I shall go and tell those people what the hon. member had to say. We still remember how those hon. members spoke about the “deep platteland” last year, and then denied this again at a later stage. Sir, despite the thousands of residents and blocks of flats he spoke of, this hon. member for Durban Point does not even know that today there are hundreds of flats where one no longer pays water and electricity and that this is included in one’s rent. In other words, one does not have to go and apply for electricity or water to be connected. There are also hundreds and thousands of people living in blocks of flats today who do not have telephones.

Yes, they cannot get them.

It does not matter whether they can get them or not, but there are people who do not have telephones. And they are not in the “bundu”; they are in flats. The proposal about using official channels to find a solution for this matter is a smokescreen the hon. member is using, because the hon. member himself knows it is not possible in practice. Sir, in more serious vein, as far as we are concerned this is a very serious matter. I think we are all agreed that we would very much like to see a successful method found for the notification of changes of address.

Perhaps the hon. member and I did not understand each other a moment ago, but if the hon. member was speaking of subsections (2) and (3) of section 10 that are not in operation yet or have been suspended by the State President, he is correct. But I was referring to subsection (1) of section 10. Section 10(1) is in operation.

But that is beside the point.

Of course section 10(1) is relevant. Sir, how can hon. members now want to argue about subsections (2) and (3) without taking subsection (1) into consideration. Section 10(1) provides that a person must himself send his change of address to the department, of course. Now alternatives are being added in subsections (2) and (3).

We agree with that.

Sir, the hon. member may make his own speech. He does not need to glare at me like that. I say again: One cannot discuss subsections (2) and (3) in this proposed amendment without looking at subsection (1). Section 10(1) is the gist of the whole matter. The hon. member for Green Point stated this. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District must go and take a few hints from the hon. member for Green Point. Sir, perhaps Pietermaritzburg District is also in the “bundu”; one never knows. Now the hon. member for Durban Point says we must not bring about changes to an Act that is not in operation yet. But the hon. member realizes that there are a quarter of a million Whites in South Africa who have already received their identity documents today. These provisions must come into operation some time or other. Those hon. members are always accusing us of being too late in the action we take. Now that we are too early, the hon. member is also annoyed.

But, Sir, let us look at the procedure we are proposing here. Throughout the world no better method can be found, for giving changes of address, than the method being proposed here. In other words, if the person himself does not report his change of address to the department, it is then the duty of the owner, whether of the house or the flat, or whatever the case may be. No better method can be found than that method of principle. Sir, there are practical problems one must take into consideration, and specifically for that reason these amendments are being proposed; that is why these alternatives are being offered to make it easier for the flat or home owner. The hon. member himself knows that the regulations prescribe what that owner must do. He must examine the person’s identity document and satisfy himself that his change of address has been made known to the department. If that person has not informed the department of his change of address, the owner himself may do so, and after 14 days have elapsed he again gets an opportunity to do so. It is all being made as convenient as possible for the home owner. Sir, there is no other tried and tested method. Every country in the world that accepts this system of change of address, makes use of this method.

Where?

Sir, the hon. the Minister will tell the hon. member exactly where it is done. The system is used, inter alia, in Switzerland; it is used in Holland and it is used in Belgium. The hon. member may go and ascertain this for himself. Sir, this is not a new principle we are now bringing before the House. We have various Acts, inter alia, the Hire Purchase Act, which also places such an obligation on the owner of a building. I cannot see why hon. members now actually have to bring up the whole principle of notification of change of address again when they should be speaking about the amendments that are being introduced here. Sir, I do not think it is necessary to go into the arguments of the hon. member for Durban Point any further, because the “practical proposal” he made is no practical proposal; it is a completely impractical and senseless proposal.

Sir, I want to come back for a moment to the hon. member for Green Point, who is now unfortunately absent. I take it he has a valid reason for not being here. I just want to refer briefly to the delegation problem, with respect to this Bill, to which the hon. member for Green Point referred. Sir, here it is a matter of the delegation of the powers which the Secretary for the Interior has. The hon. member for Green Point said scornfully that 20 years have passed and this matter has not been put right. The hon. member came and played politics here by saying that there are probably thousands of Bantu and other people who were unnecessarily prosecuted because of a document that is not even worth the paper it is written on. Sir, the basis of delegation exists in the existing Act; there is no question about that. The delegation, for which provision is made in the existing Act, is now merely being extended, in terms of this Bill, to the Director of the Bantu Reference Bureau. Let me explain the position to hon. members in these terms: The Secretary for the Interior could delegate his powers to the Director of the Bantu Reference Bureau, but in terms of this Act the Secretary had to name, individually, every person who works under the Director, and it is surely an impossible task for the Secretary for the Interior to know exactly what people there are, in the Department of Bantu Administration or under the Director, who are going to handle this matter. All that is now being done in this Bill is that it is specifically being determined that the Secretary’s powers may also be delegated to the Bantu Affairs Commissioner, or whoever the official may be and that the latter himself, like the Secretary, has the power in his own department to delegate certain powers to certain officials.

How far along the line?

Like the Secretary for the Interior he may delegate powers as far along the line as he wishes, and hon. members have already accepted this principle.

Down to the “tea boy”.

Sir, that is the kind of ridiculous statement one gets from that side. There are no longer “tea boys” at the Department of the Interior; they are messengers. They were “boys” in United Party days; under Nationalist rule they are “messengers”.

The United Party men still use the term “boys”.

Hon. members know that there are certain provisions according to which the Secretary for the Interior may delegate his powers. If a classification or a registration is made de novo, hon. members on that side know as well as I do what happens. The particulars are furnished by the person himself or by his father or mother. The hon. member for Green Point is now trying to play another political game by saying that a junior clerk can decide about the reclassification of a person. No, Sir, with all due respect that is not so. Reclassification can never be done by a junior clerk of a department. [Interjection.] The hon. member may go and read what the hon. member for Green Point said; he said it. Reclassification can only be done by the Secretary for the Interior, by the board or by the courts, and hon. members know it. Why is the hon. member for Green Point now making such a fuss about this matter? The hon. member is trying to make out here that the delegation of powers to the Director of the Bantu Reference Bureau and to officials in his department will give rise to dreadful anomalies, but what is the position? When a person comes to apply for reference documents, it is surely logical that he is applying of his own free will; he himself states that he is a Bantu and that he belongs to this or that ethnic group. What can go wrong there? If some or other irregularity takes place, it can be followed up. There is no problems in that connection. The same method is adopted in respect of the activities under the director as in the case of the activities under the Secretary for the Interior.

Sir, the hon. member for Green Point also tried to make out that we are being very unfair in clause 3, where we are dealing with the possession of two documents. Sir, when we read clause 3 we must also look at clause 1 and the definition of “identity document”, while in the past there was only a reference book in which the necessary identity information appeared, we have reached the stage where we must make an adjustment to the definition of “identity document” because these people are going to get citizenship certificates and because a citizenship certificate is not necessarily an identity document. That is the reason why we must now say that a reference book, and all the information contained in it, is also an identity document, which it has really been all along; its form is now merely changing slightly. I now come to clause 3. A person has an identity document that indicates that he is a Bantu or a member of a Bantu group; he obtains another identity document which he is not really entitled to. The problem of hon. members on that side is this: As the old section read, that person had to be in possession of both those documents to have committed an offence, but, Sir, that is a naïve standpoint to adopt. If I want to get another identity document why would I keep the one I do not want? Surely I would desire to destroy that document: I would get rid of that document specifically because I want this other document, and that is our problem at this stage: People prefer a certain identity document and then they get rid of their real identity document; then recourse must be had to the register in order to determine what the position is. The Act provides that the person must be in possession of that document, and if he has got rid of it no action can be taken against him in terms of the old section. We shall now be able to check the particulars, and if we ascertain that certain particulars are correct and that the person is in possession of the document he was desirous of having, we can withdraw that document and issue him with another document so that he will not have two documents. The only question involved is whether he was in possession of that document or not. We should all like the person to possess only his correct identity document, but this we cannot bring about if the Act remains in its present form, and therefore it is essential for this amendment to be introduced.

Why would such a person now want to change from the one to the other?

That is a very good question. Why does he want to? But that is irrelevant, Sir. The fact is that what is involved here is possession or something else. It is not a question of whether the person wants to or does not want to. That is not the question. The question of whether he wants to or not is decided when he applies for classification. There is a channel through which a person, if he has been classified and is dissatisfied with his classification, can apply for reclassification. Hon. members surely know this as well as I do. There is nothing strange or sinister in this connection. I cannot, under any circumstances, see the hon. member for Durban Point’s proposal being acceptable to this side of the House in respect of this extremely important matter of the change of address, which has to do with our whole election system, our voters’ rolls and all related matters. In no way can we accept the hon. member for Durban Point’s proposal in connection with official channels. I say it has no body, in contrast with the hon. member’s anatomy. Secondly, as far as clause 3 is concerned, there is no reason why we should not also aim at the true object of the matter, i.e that a person should not have two identity documents but only one. Then there is no reason why we should run away and not also place an obligation on home owners and flat owners to bring that change of address to the attention of the department. The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District will pro ably still be entering the debate this afternoon, and perhaps he can come to light with an alternative proposal that will be more acceptable than that of the hon. member for Durban Point. The hon. member for Green Point unfortunately made no proposals, but we are still waiting upon the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District. Perhaps he can tell us something.

The hon. member for Christiana should realize that he is just a recent addition to this House and of course he has not gained any experience of handling this particular Act. [Interjections.] From the noise we have, I take it. Sir, that many of the hon. members have not been here either.

Where is Cathy?

I want to refer to clause 1, the amendment to this Act, which deals with the question of the Secretary. [Interjections.] Would you like to make my speech for me?

Order!

You see, Sir, these hon. gentlemen do not understand that we are dealing here with a human stud-book. I am not permitted to criticize an Act here but this is one of the Acts which has created a lot of misery in this country.

On a point of order, Sir, is the hon. member entitled to cast a reflection on an Act of this House by referring to an earlier Act and saying “it caused a lot of misery in this country”?

Order! The hon. member must come back to the consideration of the amendment.

I am dealing with the amendment. I am dealing with the powers of the Secretary and I want to make my point in respect of the powers which are now going to be delegated by the Secretary. [Interjection.] Sir, I wish these hon. members would keep quiet; then they can probably learn something. If they do not want to learn, they can go out to drink coffee. I do not know whether these hon. members have had anything to do with classification or reclassification. I listened to the hon. member for Christiana. I do not know what has happened to him now. He has changed his place and has now become a deputy to the Deputy Minister.

He is getting an elementary lesson from the Deputy Minister.

To give effect to what we are asked to do here, one must realize what has happened and what could happen. There is the question of reclassification and the powers of the Secretary. The Secretary has extraordinary powers in terms of this Act. He has more powers than the Minister. If hon. members have the Act in front of them, they will see that in terms of section 5(4) the Secretary has powers of reclassification which he can use. I should like to say that the Secretary and his predecessor have been exercising these powers with discretion. We welcome it that they can do that in special cases. When I am talking about the Secretary, I want to refer to the reclassification of people who are members of divided families. One finds cases where half the members of a family are classified as White and the other members are classified as Coloureds. When these cases have to be considered by the Secretary, he must use these powers and he has the discretionary power to alter such classifications.

You are not referring to any of the clauses of this Bill.

The hon. the Deputy Minister does not understand what I am talking about. When one deals with this Bill, one must realize what really happens if this delegated power is granted to the Secretary. When application is made for reclassification, the Secretary has to consider such application. We should not forget that in these cases we are dealing with people who have grown up under the supposition that they are living within the White group and that they themselves are Whites. Later they discover that they are not classified as members of that group. A young girl may wish to get married and she applies for her documents in order to get married. When those documents arrive, she finds that she is not qualified to enter into such marriage. These cases are referred to the Secretary for the Interior or to the Minister for his investigation. They use a system whereby they send out …

Order! Can the hon. member explain what that has to do with the amending legislation?

Mr. Speaker, I wish to make the point that in terms of the delegation of powers to the Secretary which is provided for in clause 1, the Secretary will have wide powers.

You are completely on the wrong track!

You do not even have the Bill in front of you. [Interjections.] The hon. members have never had anything to do with reclassification and they do not understand it. I wish to make the point … [Interjections.]

Order!

I wish to point out that in terms of this Bill the Secretary will be able to delegate his powers. I do not know whether the hon. members have ever …

Order! The hon. member should not pay attention to other hon. members, but should come back to the Bill.

I do not know whether they ever had something to do with classification; I do not even know whether they are classified themselves. The position is that the Secretary, as was said by the hon. member for Christiana, cannot see every person who applies for classification and he is forced to delegate his powers. It was said jokingly that he could even delegate his powers down to the tea-boy. That is a very great danger. When you are dealing with a reclassification which affects a person’s life, a person who has probably been brought up in a particular group but who has been classified as belonging to another group, you are dealing with a very important matter. The Act is so restricted that it is only the Secretary who has the power to alter a classification. We have strong objection to the Secretary being allowed to delegate his powers down to people who are not qualified.

Why do you say that?

Get hold of yourself and do not make silly interjections! You are just sitting there making silly interjections. I think you had better go out!

Order!

Mr. Speaker, one gets a little bit tired of silly interjections by hon. members sitting over there. That is the importance of the Bill and if hon. members do not understand it, it is because they have not read the Bill and they therefore do not know what the Bill is about. I should like to draw the attention of the House to the seriousness of the position.

Order! The hon. members have done that three or four times already.

But, Mr. Speaker, I have not been able to drum it into their heads. They do not want to see the point. You are the only one who has seen the point up to now. Then hon. members cannot see the point, but I appreciate that you have, Sir. As I have said, we object very strongly to the Secretary being able to delegate these powers, because these powers should only be in the hands of a qualified person. If the Secretary cannot find the time, some other method must be found. But to delegate the powers to unqualified persons …

Where do you get that?

Well, may be …

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I do not know why hon. members are so worried about this legislation. That is the point and that is what we object to. We know that the Secretary will probably be careful about it, but the power is there and he cannot classify everybody. The delegation may go to a person who is unqualified and this may affect the whole of the person’s life, the whole of his life hereafter. Once a person has been classified it is difficult to be re-classified as a member of another colour group. That is the point to which I object in this particular Bill.

Mr. Speaker, my noisy friends on the other side fail to see the implications of the amendment which is contained in clause 1 of this Bill. We are now being asked two things. One is to empower the Secretary to delegate authority to somebody who may redelegate that authority to a third person, possibly even to a fourth, a fifth or a sixth person. That is what we are being asked for here this afternoon, and that is the point that has been made by my hon. friend from Salt River, but that the hon. members on the other side cannot see it. Why do we object to this? We do it because we believe that the authority should remain with the Secretary, that the control of that authority should remain with him, so that at least the Secretary will know to whom he has delegated the authority to carry out certain actions, because the responsibility remains with him. The responsibility does not pass on as this authority is delegated, redelegated and re-redelegated. It is, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Salt River, a very, very great responsibility. The future of the lives of people is dependent on this, namely, whether they are classified as White or Coloured, or whatever it may be. That is our point of objection. This whole amendment is compounded by the provisions of clause 6 of this Bill. Clause 6 makes it retrospective to 1953, that is 20 years ago. We are being asked now to justify ex post facto, errors which have been committed by the Government over the last 20 years. I submit that the hon. the Deputy Minister, in his introduction of the Bill, did not answer this question; he did not motivate this and he did not tell us why he wanted this made of retrospective effect for 20 years. That is the whole point. We are being asked for a blank cheque. The hon. the Deputy Minister referred to the reference bureau for the issue of identity documents to Bantu. I accept all that, but this does not only refer to those classifications, but it refers to the whole Act. It refers to all the powers the secretary has in terms of legislation, under all the sections and in particular section 5. He can delegate to someone to redelegate and redelegate. Where is it going to end? This is the whole point. The responsibility remains with the Secretary, but he does not know where it has gone. He does not know who is carrying out these powers. That is why we oppose this legislation.

You are conjuring up spectres again.

No, it is not a case of seeing “spoke” at all. It is a case of watching the interests of the people of South Africa. I want to say that I do not believe that this is fair on the Secretary, because he is going to have the responsibility. What did we find with the Agliotti affair? That this authority had been delegated and redelegated to the point where the Secretary, the person concerned, did not know who had the power and in fact did not know who had signed certain documents but yet he had to carry the responsibility. I want to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he believes this is fair on his Secretary. Is it fair on the Secretary of the Interior that he should not know who is carrying out his authority?

The hon. member for Christiana made a long song and dance about clause 3 and referred to what the hon. member for Green Point had said. I want to point out to the hon. the Deputy Minister that clause 3 is the only clause of this whole Bill that we accept. The hon. member for Green Point made that quite clear. I therefore do not know what the hon. member for Christiana was getting all excited about.

The hon. member for Christiana referred to section 10(1) of the Act. I want to say here and now that section 10(1) of the Act is the only section that was accepted by us. We believe that the onus should be on the individual to notify his change of address. In fact the hon. the Deputy Minister knows that there are forty laws, regulations, byelaws and other provisions in this country requiring an individual to notify his change of address. But they have all failed and that is why the hon. the Deputy Minister has now come with a second amendment in the space of three years to try to get people to notify their changes of address.

To create a keeper for his brother.

Hon. members ask what suggestion I can make. I am going to refer those hon. members to the department concerned, the Department of the Interior, particularly to those who are concerned with the Book of Life. I want to say that we in South Africa have already devised the best scheme to get people to notify their changes of address and I am sure the department will confirm it to members on that side as well. That is the card which is now embodied in the Book of Life. I am sure that the hon. the Deputy Minister will confirm that the response which has been received from holders of the Book of Life, those who have sent this pre-addressed change of address card back has been phenomenal. I want to say to the hon. the Deputy Minister that instead of wasting the time of this House coming with this sort of amendment when in fact we are amending a provision of an Act which has been suspended or which has never been promulgated and which does not apply, he should be getting on and be issuing the Book of Life, because once those are all issued then, if the indications to date are to be accepted, we are going to find our difficulties regarding notification of changes of address very much alleviated and we are going to find the situation very much better than it is today. What is the position. Nobody can even apply for a Book of Life today, because the department cannot carry out the work it has now. But here the Deputy Minister is coming with an amendment which is going to create even more work for them in that department.

I really wanted to speak to the hon. the Deputy Minister in connection with clause 4 of this particular Bill. Clause 4 amends section 19 of the Act. Section 19 raises certain presumptions. Clause 4 introduces a new presumption, namely that if a reference book under the Bantu Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents Act has been issued to any person, such person shall for the purposes of this Act be deemed to have been notified on the date on which such reference book was so issued to him that he has been classified as a member of the ethnic group indicated in such reference book. In other words, when that Bantu receives his reference book in response to his application, it will specify the ethnic group to which he belongs. The presumption is thereby raised that he is in fact a member of that particular ethnic group and it is up to him to prove that he is not. That is all very well, but how does the responsible authority arrive at a decision with regard to the ethnic group to which one belongs? I ask that question in all seriousness: How do they arrive at the decision …

It is not relevant here.

It must be. How can the hon. member say that it is not pertinent to this matter? Of course it is! We are being asked to write a presumption into the law which shall be raised in every case under this Act, the presumption that a person is in fact a member of a certain ethnic group. They cannot tell me how they decide to which ethnic group he belongs. Section 5(5) of the Population Registration Act states—

That is fine; so far so good. However, there is no reference whatsoever to the different ethnic groups which can by proclamation be proclaimed by the State President and which have, in fact, been so proclaimed. Reading subsection (5) further, one finds that there is another group which is subdivided into subgroups, namely the Coloured people. It is specifically laid down in subsection (5)(f)—

There is no such provision for the Bantu. I want to know how they decide to which ethnic group the Bantu man belongs, because—and this is becoming more and more important as Government policy is carried out in this country—certainly a Xhosa, a citizen of the Transkei, has far greater benefits than the citizen of KwaZulu has today. Therefore it is important that he should be classified correctly as either a Xhosa or a Zulu.

What is an identifiable group according to your policy?

“What is an identifiable group?” With respect to the hon. member, I do not understand his question. What has that got to do with this question? It has got nothing whatsoever to do with it. Let us take the case of the Bantu living in Langa who applies for an identity document. After he has applied for an identity document, how do they decide to which ethnic group he belongs?

How are you going to decide?

Is his classification based on the group his father belonged or belongs to? Have we got any record in respect of his father? I do not believe they have.

How are you going to decide?

It is not a question of how we are going to decide. It has nothing to do with us at all. We have told you what our attitude towards this legislation is.

Order! The hon. member must not take any notice of the interjections; he must come back to the Bill.

This is all part of my argument. How do they decide to which ethnic group they are going to classify this man? He might be a Zulu, a

They all know where they belong.

I do not see any rules laid down in the Act, so how is the hon. the Minister going to classify these people?

To come for a moment to clause 2, I must ask the hon. the Deputy Minister a few questions. I read from the proposed new subsection (2) with reference to the “prescribed steps”—

I am aware of those prescribed steps and what has been prescribed by the department. There is a particular form that has to be completed and returned to the Secretary which contains the name and the reference number of the party concerned. The amendment we are being asked to insert now reads that the person shall—

We are being asked to insert “prescribed particulars in respect of the first-mentioned person” where in the past we had to take certain prescribed steps. Could the hon. the Deputy Minister give us some idea of what he anticipates those particulars will be?

I know what they are.

The hon. the Deputy Minister says he knows what they are, so he will be able to advise us. I do not think this is really going to make any material difference to the attitude which this side of the House has adopted towards this measure. I believe that we will continue to oppose it.

I shall reply to the last question of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg District first. He asked what the prescribed steps are which have to be taken. Those steps are determined by means of regulations. A person must ensure that his registered address is the correct one. Those are the steps which have to be taken. A person must see to it that the address on his identity document, which the hon. member called the book of life, is the correct one. That is the obligation which is being placed on a person, which is what the hon. member is looking for. Those are the prescribed particulars.

Those are the present steps.

The present steps are that he should ensure that the registered address is the correct one. In addition he must furnish his name and identity number. That is all.

And the prescribed particulars …

The prescribed particulars are his name and identity number. Is the hon. member satisfied? Then I want to deal with the presumption. The hon. member had a long argument on presumptions, and on how the ethnic groupings would be made. This is a matter which is not relevant to this Bill at all. Let us see what is in fact relevant. The envisaged amendment in clause 4 reads—

Now the hon. member wants to know how the ethnic grouping will take place. That has nothing whatsoever to do with this Bill. The clause refers to what has already taken place and to the ethnic groups indicated in his reference book. The issue here is not how ethnic classification takes place. As I have said it is indicated in the book and the person is aware of it or ought to be aware of it because it is given to him at his request. The person himself came forward to state to which group he belongs, and this is indicated in the reference book. Now the clause indicates that such person shall be deemed to be aware of this. That is all. He cannot subsequently state that he falls under another ethnic group. If he received his reference book with his ethnic grouping, he was aware of that. That is not unjust. What is unfair about that?

I could not quite make out what the tenor of the argument of the hon. member for Salt River was. I did understand that it dealt with the matter of delegation. I think another hon. member also has problems in this regard, and consequently I shall deal with that portion of the Bill immediately. What has happened here is the following: The head of the Bantu Reference Bureau distributed reference books to people who applied for a reference book. The head of the Bantu Reference Bureau and his subordinates did this. As people reached the age of 16 years they came to ask for reference books, and the reference books were issued to them. That reference book is also a document which is being used for this Population Registration Act. The Secretary has had the right to delegate since 1950. But how was it stated in the Act? I refer to the existing definition of Secretary—

It is a delegation. What happens here was that the law advisors said: “This delegation of yours should be a personal delegation. It should be your personal delegation, and as far as we were able to establish your personal delegation was given solely to the head of the Bantu Reference Burea.” In other words, his further delegations were not made, and for that reason this provision is now being amended. In future reference books will continue to be issued in this way. Consequently it is necessary for the delegations to be made correctly. For that reason one amendment, i.e. the substitution of the words “kragtens delegasie deur” for the words “in opdrag” is being effected to the Afrikaans version only and two others to both the English and Afrikaans versions. The fully amended definition now reads as follows—

In other words, he is now granting the right to delegate on his behalf to the head of the Bantu Reference Bureau as well.

I come now to the point raised by the hon. member for Green Point. He apologized for having to leave the Chamber. In his Second Reading speech he told us that he could understand that if an error had been made it had to be rectified, but he wanted to know why we did not simply legalize all the actions of the officials. His objection was not concerned with the matter of delegation. His objection was concerned with our manner of legalizing matters. He wanted us to say that everything which had been done previously, from 1952 onwards, was now legal. There is no difference whatsoever if we were to do this as the hon. member for Green Point suggested, or if we do it as is being proposed in the Bill. I maintain that this method of ours is a far easier method, for we have to remedy the matter of delegation in any case as far as the future is concerned. Since one now has to remedy it as far as the future is concerned, one may as well remedy it in retrospect as well, in respect of the 20 years which have elapsed. So, we have now remedied this matter of delegation. That is all that this provision comprises. It comprises nothing more. When the hon. member for Salt River becomes concerned here about section 5(4), etc., it has nothing to do with this. The situation is still that the Secretary simply takes action, or someone acts directly under his delegation.

(Inaudible.)

Yes, I shall reply to you; I know what you want to say. You now want to say that it is possible that he can delegate right down to the tea-boy. The hon. member must not present examples like that. The practice is that the Secretary deals with those 5(4) cases himself. He does not delegate in that case.

But he can do that now.

He has always been able to do that. The hon. member is simply conjuring up spectres now, as one of the hon. members here said.

Sir, my time is running out; I should also like to reply to the hon. member for Durban Point. I appreciate the attempt by the hon. member to make a constructive contribution. He mentioned certain things here which in his opinion should be applied. Sir, I do not think it is practical and I am now going to tell the hon. member why. But before I do that I want to cross swords with him in regard to one point. The hon. member said that subsections (2) and (3) of section 10 of the principal Act were being replaced by new subsections because they did not work. The hon. member knows as well as I do that those two subsections were not in operation for a very good reason. I know that the hon. member is always only too eager to make a little political capital out of matters. It is no use putting subsections (2) and (3) of section 10 into operation now for the simple reason that the identity documents have not been completed yet.

That is what I said.

There is a big difference between what the hon. member said, namely that the section would not work, and the actual position, namely that the section was not put into operation because a preliminary step had to be taken first. The section will definitely work; we believe that it will work. I want to agree with the hon. member for Durban Point that this clause is one of the most important clauses in regard to this new attempt to include people’s names on the register. It is extremely important that people should furnish their change of address. I told the hon. member at the outset that I would welcome practical suggestions, for I have no doubt whatsoever that the Department of the Interior will definitely consider any really good suggestion, precisely because this aspect of the Act is one of the most important aspects. If we fail in this connection, then the entire system of registration of identity documents fails. Sir, hon. members know that section 10(1) is in operation. Section 10(1) provides that the person should himself, within 14 days, notify the Department of the Interior of his change of address, but we are now going a step further. We have received representations from the estate agents, and I shall come in a moment to what the hon. member for Durban Point said in regard to blocks of flats. I want to tell him that I grew up in the “bundu”, but that in my constituency there are just as many big blocks of flats as there are in his. The estate agents approached us themselves and said: “please, allow us, as soon as a person moves into a block of flats, to obtain the necessary information immediately and furnish it to the Secretary”. This amendment is therefore being effected at request. Sir, let us see how it works in practice. I do not know how many people who are not married and who go under one surname are living in the constituency of the hon. member for Durban Point, but I want to tell him that it is absolutely essential for the sound operation of this Act that one should constantly be able to keep track of the movements of a person, whether he is married or not; it is absolutely essential. What happens when a person moves into a block of flats? The hon. member said that the person who consents to that can only be the owner. Sir, surely that is far from being the truth. The owner gives his consent if the agent gives his consent. The hon. member knows just as well as I that companies who appoint agents to rent their properties have no idea whatsoever of who is living in those flats, for the agent gives consent.

I accept that.

If that is accepted, then we will have this position: As soon as a person moves into a block of flats the owner or agent will immediately inform him: “Sir, I am under a legal obligation to ascertain what your name and your identity number is.” That information is then furnished to him; he simply sends it on to the Department of the Interior and the necessary entry is made in the register. The document of the person concerned is amended and returned to him. What more can you expect?

And the wife and children?

This applies to all whose particulars which have to be included in the person’s identity document.

Sir, I listened attentively to the suggestion made by the hon. member in regard to water, telephones and lights—because it sounded to me like a practical suggestion—which was that we should rather obtain this information from the departments. He has mentioned telephones, water and lights. There are many thousands of telephones which are being operated under the name of a previous subscriber. It usually takes a person one to two months before he has his previous telephone subscription cancelled and is allocated another telephone. We simply cannot do this. I do not think it is practical. Take water and lights. There one has the same position. The people have moved out of the house long ago, and only then did they cut it off. Therefore there is no absolute control. The very best control remains the person who is moving who has to inform you. Take radio licences. One licence is issued to one member of the family, but five members have radios. Those licences mean nothing in this respect. Take the university residences. I think this proves our side of the matter, that this is a very practical method. The moment a student arrives the residence warden writes his name down and this goes to the Department of the Interior and it is rectified in the identity documents. I am not wedded to this clause as such. I do not want to inform this House that this is the only method on earth whereby we are able to exercise control. I want to reiterate that any time when hon. members, inside this House or outside, go to the Department of the Interior with a better suggestion, it will be considered, for herein lies the essence of the whole matter.

In his Second Reading speech the hon. member for Green Point made a few statements. He discussed the position of the document, in terms of clause 3. He said that he did not think we should amend this Act as we want to do. Previously the position was that if a person has an identity document—the Act read that if he was in possession of an identity document and was also in possession of an identity document on which the race of another person was indicated as being Bantu or otherwise—the one document was returned. The law advisors have informed us once again that in this case a person must be in possession of both these identity documents. Now I want to give the hon. members a very practical example. What happens here is that a person receives a Bantu reference book. He throws it away for he receives a lot of advice from all his friends. He obtained the Bantu reference book from the one department. He then comes to the Department of the Interior with a lot of other things, many of which are not valid, and receives a Coloured identity card. Now he has two documents, but he throws the reference book away. It was not possible to call in that Coloured identity card in terms of section 15, for the simple reason that the interpretation of the law was that he should have been in possession of both documents. Now we are simply amending it in such a way that if he has the two documents, whether he has them in his possession or not, if they have been issued to him—these are the words which are now being used, if they have been issued to a person—then that person has to return the one. Then it is the one on which he is not indicated as being a Bantu. In other words, the one on which he is indicated as being a Bantu must remain in his possession.

Is this issuing and receiving?

It is issuing and receiving. It has that connotation. It is the full action of issuing to a person. That is all that is being requested in this Bill. I do not know why hon. members became so concerned. I do not think it was necessary.

I think I have now replied to everyone. If there are further questions which hon. members wish to ask, I shall gladly reply to them in the stages of this Bill which are still to come. But at this stage I think this is all I need say.

Question put and the House divided:

AYES—89: Aucamp, P. L. S.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, G. F.; Botha, H. J.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, M. C.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Botma, M. C.; Coetsee, H. J.; De Jager, P. R.; De Villiers, D. J.; Du Plessis, A. H.; Du Plessis, G. F. C.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Du Toit, J. P.; Engelbrecht, J. J.; Erasmus, A. S. D.; Greyling, J. C.; Grobler, W. S. J.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Henning, J. M.; Heunis, J. C.; Hoon, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jurgens, J. C.; Keyter, H. C. A.; Kotzé, W. D.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, J. P. C.; Louw, E.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Marais, P. S.; McLachlan, R.; Meyer, P. H.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Munnik, L. A. P. A.; Nel, D. J. L.; Otto, J. C.; Palm, P. D.; Pienaar, L. A.; Pieterse, R. J. J.; Potgieter, J. E.; Prinsloo, M. P.; Rall, J. J.; Rall, J. W.; Rall, M. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Reinecke, C. J.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schoeman, B. J.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Smit, H. H.; Swanepoel, J. W. F.; Swiegers, J. G.; Van Breda, A.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Wyk, H. L; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Viljoen, M.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vorster, B. L; Vorster, L. P. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Weber, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.

Tellers: W. A. Cruywagen, S. F. Kotzé, P. C. Roux and G. P. van den Berg.

NOES—38: Bands, G. J.; Basson, J. A. L.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Baxter, D. D.; Cillié, H. van Z.; Deacon, W. H. D.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Emdin, S.; Fisher, E. L.; Graaff, De V.; Hickman, T.; Hopewell, A.; Hourquebie, R. G. L.; Hughes, T. G.; Jacobs, G. F.; Kingwill, W. G.; Marais, D. J.; Miller, H. Mitchell, D. E.; Mitchell, M. L.; Moolman, J. H.; Murray, L. G.; Oldfield, G. N.; Oliver, G. D. G.; Raw, W. V.; Stephens, J. J. M.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Streicher, D. M.; Timoney, H. M.; Van den Heever, S. A.; Van Eck, H. J.; Van Hoogstraten, H. A.; Wainwright, C. J. S.; Webber, W. T.; Winchester, L. E. D.; Wood, L. F.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and J. O. N. Thompson.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

That the House do now adjourn.

Agreed to.