Mr. Chairman, I want to direct the attention of the House, firstly, to clause 4(1)(c) and then to clause 4(2). I think we all know that as far as this Bill is concerned clause 4(1)(c) relates to the regulations and the regulations are going to become very important with regard to the implementation of this legislation. If we are going to have adequate control of radio apparatus, if we are going to have proper proficiency and if we are going to have complete control over the system of communications, the regulations are going to be very, very important. The proficiency of the person who operates a radio becomes of paramount importance. Therefore, where we deal with the question of proficiency in this paragraph I would urge the hon. the Minister to confirm that although the regulations will entitle the drafter thereof to change the test for proficiency, those who have already been tested for proficiency will not be affected in any way and that their proficiency test will remain valid.

In referring to clause 4(2) I want to make specific reference to the words—

The regulations will then prescribe for what period it will be enforced. In other words, it can be changed after a short period. That can then lead to a change being brought about in the regulations. I would therefore ask the hon. the Minister to confirm that people who have already been tested for proficiency will not be affected now or later when the regulations are amended.

Mr. Chairman, there is no intention whatsoever of prejudicing anyone who is at present in possession of a certificate of proficiency. The sole aim is to bring about a change in the way in which the certificate of proficiency is awarded. Therefore there is no intention of prejudicing anyone.

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to the following words contained in the clause—

In other words, where two people using radio apparatus use it for the purpose of passing telecommunication, which is similar to sending a telegram, they would be charged by the Post Office. The interesting thing that arises here, and on which the hon. the Minister can enlighten the House, is whether this means that every conversation which takes place between people who use the apparatus as radio amateurs is recorded by the authorities? If that is the case, I would like to know to what extent the Post Office administration has to go to record and tape every single conversation taking place among all the radio hams, here and overseas. In other words, how is this going to be implemented?

Mr. Chairman, this provision effects no change whatsoever to the material provisions which already exist. It only changes the method of prescribing by regulation. It removes the limit set on the amount of the licence fee and which is specified in the schedule. The prescription is therefore only done by regulation. For the rest, there is no change.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to refer to the new sub-section (5) of section 14, as substituted by clause 9(c). This new sub-section reads, inter alia, as follows—

I am not quite sure whether this is the correct order or sequence which should be followed. Should the sequence of events be that one should first have a matter reviewed by a court and then go to the Minister? I would have thought that one would first go to the Minister and that one would only take the matter before a court after that.

Mr. Chairman, the sequence will of course depend on the circumstances of each case. If the hon. member would look at the explanatory memorandum, he will see that a person may, under section 11 of the Act, obtain a permit to possess an unlicenced radio apparatus, provided that he does not use that apparatus. It is then frequently desirable to seal that apparatus. In clause 9 those powers are extended. In that clause provision is made for the sealing of radio apparatus in respect of which a licence has been suspended. Therefore I say that the first step will depend on each individual case. This goes without saying. Depending on the provisions of the Act and the case itself, one would consider which clause one would have recourse to. The right of appeal to the Minister can take place in either of these two cases. This depends on when and in which circumstances such a person feels aggrieved by any action on the part of officials.

Can one use either of the two methods?

Yes. Such a person can use either of the two sections of the Act, depending on how he is affected by them. This goes without saying.

Mr. Chairman, I move the following amendment as printed on the Order Paper—

on production, to any person present and affected by the inspection, of the authority issued to him,

This is an amendment which has been moved to many Bills which have come before this House. It is one which was coined by a worthy former colleague of ours in these benches, and it is one which certainly merits close examination by the hon. the Minister. In terms of this amendment we call upon the person inspecting any plant or apparatus to furnish the authority issued to him. This is something which is in the best interests of all concerned and it is the right and proper way of doing things.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the hon. member that if one looks at this matter superficially, there may be merit in that standpoint, but I want to make it very clear that the amendment proposed by the hon. member may have further implications. Through this amendment the onus is then placed on the inspector who goes to inspect the apparatus concerned, to ascertain whether the person to whom he shows his authority is not only present but that he will also be affected by that authority which he produces. It may sound theoretical, but technical aspects such as these may be abused in court. It is, for example, possible that a number of persons who are present at such a place where the apparatus is and where it has to be inspected, may get together and testify in court that none of them are affected by that provision. The person who is in fact affected by it, if he is really engaged in subversive activities, can simply make sure that he is never on those premises. In other words, the inspector can come up against the problem that he arrives at the place where the apparatus is and then cannot find the person affected by the provisions. Therefore although this amendment does have merit at first glance, I unfortunately cannot accept it.

Mr. Chairman, would the hon. the Minister not then concede that it would be in the interests of the inspector, and in the interests of this Bill, for the authority to be produced when inspections are carried out under normal circumstances? We will accept that under the circumstances he has outlined, there is the possibility that the authority need not be produced, but under normal, everyday circumstances an authority should be produced so that the person affected by the inspection knows that he is, in fact, being visited by a properly authorized inspector.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member is quite correct. The licence inspectors of the department are all people who wear uniforms. That is already an immediate indication that they are vested with authority. But apart from that they also have written authority on them, and the person whose plant is inspected, has the right to request them to produce that authority. However, we do not want to place an obligation on the inspector to produce the authority to any owner of such apparatus in the Act, because it then places the onus on him to find the person concerned.

Mr. Chairman, it will be remembered that when we dealt with clause 12 we on this side of the House objected very strongly to the deletion proposed in clause 12(1)(f). Here I refer to the deletion of subsections (2), (3) and (4) of section 18 of the Radio Act, Act No. 3 of 1952. The hon. the Minister will be well aware of what we are deleting. What we are objecting to relates, in particular, to the deletion of section 18(3) of the Act which states—

This gives us the opportunity to object. In subsection (4) it is also stated that if both Houses of Parliament by resolution pass the measure in the same session, the envisaged changes can be made. We see the present step as a diminution of the rights of this House and of members of Parliament who have exercised this right in the past. We concede that the regulations may, to a large extent, be technical. We are nevertheless taking away a vested right, and we see no earthly reason why this right should be taken from this House, whereas in fact representations could be made in this House, by members of this House, and the regulations accordingly be dealt with where necessary. For those reasons this side of the House intends voting against this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I disagree with the hon. member in this respect that we are not depriving Parliament of any right. We are giving Parliament the authority which it has in terms of the existing legislation in another way by means of the amendment which is being proposed here. It remains a statutory requirement that regulations promulgated by any Minister, have to be published in the Government Gazette and have to be tabled. That enables Parliament to discuss them at any time, as I indicated yesterday. In other words, Parliament is not being deprived of the right to state its views on those regulations. I pointed out yesterday that in all these years there has never been a case where Parliament rejected any regulations promulgated in the manner prescribed by the obsolete legislation. Therefore we are now adopting this more modern method which we believe will give much more flexibility and will make matters easier for us without encroaching upon the rights of Parliament.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal specifically with the proposed new subsection (1)(h). As far as that provision is concerned, I made the point that if someone conveys a communication to some other person, that is an offence. Certain information may become available to someone through having heard it on the radio. I gave the example of information concerning a bomb which was to be placed somewhere and which was to explode at a certain time. Such information may be vital to the security of the State. However, in terms of this proposed new provision no one may pass on such information. In order to deal with the difficulty, which I do not think is intended, I move as an amendment—

I did have in mind originally that people should be able to report to the competent authority, but that would mean we would have to find a definition somewhere in the Act of “competent authority”, and there is not one. I have therefore chosen the precise words used in clause 7 of the same Bill, viz. “any member of the S.A. Police or (by) any officer in the Public Service duly authorized by the Postmaster-General”. Those words are to form part of the proposed new section 10 of the Act. I have given notice of my amendment to the hon. the Minister and I hope he has had time to consider it. Indeed, I hope he will consider it favourably.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member was so kind as to make his amendment available to me for consideration in advance, for which I am grateful to him. I studied the amendment and to me the problem seems to be that the hon. member is apparently unaware of the fact—and he can hardly be aware of the fact—that the conditions on which radio hams obtain their licences, do make provision for them to pass on to the police information they receive legally in terms of their licence. Our objective with this amendment is merely to prevent the passing on of information which they receive illegally outside the terms of their licences, and to prevent a person hearing such information from passing it on in a manner turning it into a story or perhaps creating panic under given circumstances.

Mr. Chairman, my only difficulty is that the members of the radio league and those who qualify by virtue of their proficiency have to take an oath of secrecy. In that oath, however, they do not say that they will divulge this information to any authority. The oath merely qualifies them to say that they will not divulge information to any person unless requested by a person in authority, such as a member of the S.A. Police or an officer mentioned. There will be no request, because that officer will have no information and will accordingly not know how to make the request. Unless one places the onus on the person receiving the information one is going to lose. I say with respect that a person can be convicted under this provision and a very heavy penalty can be imposed.

Mr. Chairman, people who value their licences also try to comply with the conditions on which they were granted their licences and on which they may use them. For that reason they will convey any information legally received by them to the police or to any other body which may make legal use of it. The only thing we are trying to prevent here is their passing on of information they have obtained illegally, that is by receiving it on frequencies unauthorized, in terms of their licences, and further use being made of such information by people who have received it from them. The people about whom the hon. member for Hillbrow is concerned, are fully protected. I do not think that they will have any problems or experience any adverse effect as a result of the restriction we are imposing on them.

Mr. Speaker, after listening yesterday to the somewhat cursory speech of introduction of the hon. Minister of Bantu Administration and Development and the speeches of other hon. members on that side, particularly of the hon. member for Barberton and another hon. member on that side of the House, it became apparent to me that there is a complete lack of awareness on that side of the House of the tremendous significance which this Bill has with regard to certain rights of Black people. The fact that hon. members on that side of the House were surprised that the hon. member for Houghton took the strong line that she did, seems to indicate that there is no real comprehension of just how important these suggested amendments are. I would like to ask: Do hon. members on the other side know just what they are trying to do with this Bill? The hon. member for Barberton—who does not appear to be here now—accused my colleague, the hon. member for Houghton, of always putting the worst interpretation on legislation that comes before us. [Interjections.] However, long and bitter experience has proved to us that we have been right on almost every occasion. We therefore have very good reason to be very cynical and suspicious.

Clause 3 of the Bill amends the definition of an idle or undesirable person. Section 29, subsection (7), of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act states—

Thus, in terms of the amendment to this section, any Black man who has been unemployed for four months—122 days—in the preceding 12 months can lose his rights under section 10 of the principal Act to remain in an urban area. I do not believe hon. members are aware of what the possession of rights under section 10 means to a Black person. Having these rights or not having these rights may in many cases be the difference between being in a position to provide for one’s family or not being able to provide for one’s family, of getting a job or not getting a job, of eating, of sleeping, etc. I do not think it is too dramatic to say that sometimes the possession of section 10-rights can almost be a question of life or death. Hon. members must realize that they cannot play with people’s lives like this. In this time of serious unemployment, why should somebody who can find no work, through no fault of his own, have the possibility hanging over his head of being sent away from an urban area as being idle or undesirable, even though he has since birth resided continuously in such an area? This can happen in terms of the amendment. As the building industry is very slack at the moment, we should look at the situation of a building labourer. He might have lost his job because of the slackness in the industry after having worked a lifetime in that industry and might want to work, but because he has been unemployed for four months, he can be declared idle and undesirable and sent away. The whole question of a possible loss of section 10 rights is highly explosive and the fact that an amendment like this can be put forward at this time, shows a complete lack of sensitivity. Certainly we could have expected such a thing from the hon. the Minister’s predecessor, who played the numbers game with a cynical disregard of any feelings of humanity for people. I want to suggest to this hon. Minister that he shows the depth of his good intentions by reconsidering and withdrawing these particular amendments.

Other members in these benches have dealt with various clauses of the Bill and I want to refer specifically to the clauses which seek to amend the Bantu Homelands Constitution Act (No. 21 of 1971), i.e. clauses 15 to 19. We have no particular objection to clauses 15, 16 and 17, which in fact give greater powers to homeland Legislative Assemblies. In principle quite probably this sort of decentralization is desirable. But clause 18 gives the State President the power to amend, by proclamation, schedule 1 of the Act and, in fact, any other provision of the Act. We are very suspicious about this. Why, if the State President is to have these powers, is it necessary even to include clauses 15, 16 and 17? As I read the amendment, all that will be necessary will be to amend schedule 1 and the State President will be able to do this by proclamation. Can it perhaps be that these amendments are mere window dressing? When we look at clause 18 we must say, in the first place, that we do not think it is desirable that Parliament should be by-passed in such a way. It is very strange indeed that there is no requirement that the homeland Government should be consulted. When powers are given or taken away by a proclamation of the State President, the homeland Government does not even have to be consulted. I suppose that, theoretically, the power vested in the State President could be used to remove matters from the jurisdiction of Legislative Assemblies. I would think that the objective should be exactly the opposite. Our interpretation of the intentions behind the amendment is that a homeland could be brought to the very threshold of independence by proclamation of the State President without actually becoming independent. The State President could proclaim that more and more items be added to schedule 1 of the Act, without any reference to Parliament or to the homeland Legislative Assembly concerned. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that at the very least he should provide for the agreement of the homeland Government before they are saddled with additional responsibilities which they may not even want.

On this particular issue I would like to ask the hon. the Minister a question. In terms of this amendment it is not impossible that homelands which do not wish to become independent could be compelled to take virtual independence. What is the hon. the Minister’s intentions? Is he going to force the pace towards independence? The explanatory memorandum, which to my mind explains very little, merely says that clauses 18 and 19(b) are designed to simplify the present prescribed procedure and to make allowances for the different needs and differing rate of development of various homelands. I am afraid it is not that simple. Again we are very suspicious of the hon. the Minister’s, or perhaps his predecessor’s, intentions and we would like him to state why he is not only bypassing Parliament, but also the homelands Legislative Assemblies themselves.

Another clause on which we would like a little clarity is clause 10. Clause 10 repeals section 16 of the Bantu Labour Act, Act 67 of 1964. Again I have studied the explanatory memorandum on this, but we would like a clearer expression of the hon. the Minister’s intention. Section 16 of the Bantu Labour Act prohibits the withholding of wages from Bantu employees by employers and we are not convinced that its repeal is at this stage advisable. We admit that it must be a burden on the Director of Bantu Labour and on the court itself to grant authority for any deferment of wages, but we would like to point out that Black labour is still in a disadvantaged position on the employment market and therefore we are not sure that certain protection is still not necessary. We will, however, deal with this more fully in the Committee Stage.

Finally, I would like to return to the question of citizenship which is affected by clause 2 of the Bill. In spite of everything that has been said by the hon. members on the other side, it is quite clear that a child of an urban Black who is a citizen of an independent homeland and who is born after independence loses any protection under section 10, and this we are not prepared to accept at all. We are in total disagreement with this in principle.

All in all this omnibus Bill is a thoroughly bad Bill. It contains a number of completely unacceptable principles. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister sits there and smiles, but I want to tell him that it constitutes a very inauspicious start to his new job. I can only hope that he can think again about this legislation. It would be a tremendous gesture if he withdrew the Bill. If he did so he would certainly show South Africa that he means business.

I would like to add my support to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the speech of the hon. member for Orange Grove, and it does not surprise me to see him displaying so much bitterness and being so embittered. I have sympathy for him. If I were a Whip who had sat in the second row of benches and was then rejected by my own party and replaced by a man from outside the party, one would have been able to understand my feeling somewhat bitter. [Interjections.] Moreover, I have heard that the “establishment” has decided that the hon. member is to make his exit from this House. I think that is a very wise decision, especially if one bears in mind his conduct in this House. [Interjections.] I understand the hon. member is going to be replaced by the former member for Edenvale. I want to repeat that I think it is a very wise decision on the part of the “Establishment” to take the hon. member away from here.

The Government’s point of departure as regards this Bill is to give further shape to its policy. We have been listening, particularly to the hon. member for Houghton, here in this House. Any measure affecting the affairs of the Black man which the Government comes up with, is belittled and made suspect by hon. members on that side. An atmosphere is created against it in order to gull the Blacks outside this House into believing that the Government has nothing but bad intentions as far as they are concerned. The entire attitude of those hon. members is that they are the only people who want to act humanely, fairly and reasonably towards the Blacks. Any Government measure is made suspect in advance. In this way, things which are not in the Bill nor the intention of the Government, are attributed to this legislation. In a moment I shall come to the things said about this Bill, by the hon. member for Houghton in particular. Through their utterances they are damaging the race relations in our country and they are scarring the face of South Africa as far as our image to the outside world is concerned. It is unfair and unpatriotic to try to suggest here that the Government is occupying itself with measures supposedly aimed at suppressing and oppressing the Blacks.

The hon. member for Houghton has become an elderly lady in this House. I shall be very pleased if the former hon. member for Edenvale could return to this House to become their main speaker on Bantu affairs.

I should like to refer to clause 3 of the amending Bill. As the hon. the Minister said at the beginning of his Second Reading speech, this amending Bill actually lends itself more to discussion during the Committee Stage. However, the hon. member for Houghton said, inter alia, (Hansard, 6 February)—

She went on to contend that in terms of clause 3 we were going to prosecute these people living in the Black residential areas who had become unemployed.

How does clause 3 read and what is the amendment concerned? Here, in the first place, we are not dealing with a new principle at all. That principle has existed since 1963, viz. that idle people may in fact be prosecuted. The hon. member for Pinelands adopted the same attitude and also accused the Government of wanting to prosecute these unemployed people. Clause 3 refers to people who find themselves in the urban residential areas. I quote from section 29 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, 1945—

The full amendment introduced by clause 3 of the amending Bill, concerns the expression “normally unemployed”. Since problems have been experienced with the interpretation of the meaning of “normally unemployed”, the provision “not lawfully employed and has, for a period, or for periods in the aggregate, of not less than 122 days during the preceding 12 months, not been lawfully employed”, is being introduced. This additional provision does no more than to explain precisely what is meant by “normally unemployed”.

As I have already said, hon. members of the Opposition are now trying to suggest that we want to prosecute all unemployed persons in the urban Black areas.

I should now like to discuss the spirit of this amending Bill. If we look at the next subsection, it becomes very clear that the people the State wants to prosecute and curb, are those who are work-shy. I quote from section 29(2)(a)(ii)—

I quote from subparagraph (iii)—

It goes on—

The whole spirit of the Bill and the whole purpose of the legislation is not to prosecute people who are unable to find employment. People who are seeking work will not be prosecuted. The purpose is, however, to curb layabouts. The whole spirit, purport and principle of the legislation were framed and accepted as far back as 1963. A small amendment is being effected here in order to clarify matters and to eliminate the confusion concerning “normally unemployed” as well as to lay down how it is to be applied.

122 days?

I did not interrupt the hon. member while he was speaking; he has had his chance. Now I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton in all fairness: Does she not want us to remove idle people, layabouts, from the urban areas?

Not people who cannot get jobs because of the recession.

I want to ask the hon. member whether layabouts should be removed.

What is a layabout?

Horace van Rensburg!

A layabout is a person who is work-shy or a person who does not want to work. It is a person who is given a job, leaves that job, does not want to work and just wants to loaf. I should like to know from the hon. member for Houghton whether we should leave those people as they are in the Black urban areas.

I have already answered. The existing law already gives you the right to deal with those people.

So you are prepared to grant that we may deal with them?

The law allows you to deal with them.

Then I am very pleased that the hon. member agrees that we must take action against layabouts.

In principle.

In other words, she accepts the principle of this clause entirely.

Rubbish!

She is apparently only opposed to the method. Now the hon. member says it is rubbish. However, I want to point out to her that the hon. member for Pinelands is in favour of removing the layabouts. The hon. member for Pinelands objects to people of colour walking through Pinelands. This has already been placed on the record in this House. The hon. member for Pinelands objects to this, because his own constituency and his own people are involved. What is more, yesterday the hon. member for Pinelands said (Hansard, 6 February)—

That is right.

He went on to say—

Therefore, I cannot understand why the hon. member objects to the people who walk through his constituency.

You have changed the definition.

Nor can I understand why the hon. member for Houghton is also so enthusiastic in supporting that same principle.

I want to say something else on the question of layabouts in the urban areas. It really is a very serious problem. When action is taken against these people, the objective is also to make life more livable for other people who live in the urban areas. If we take a look at the riots which took place in the Bantu urban residential areas—we only have to talk to the Police and everyone involved— we see that the layabouts are the shock troops. These layabouts are used as the shock troops. These layabouts are the people who come and rob and plunder everything after a fire has been started. If one talks to the Black people of Soweto, they tell you that the greatest single problem which they have in their community, is these people … [Interjections.]

† Has an hon. member said that I am lying?

I did not say you lie.

When were you last in Soweto?

I was there twice last year.

But you have learnt nothing.

Order! The debate is still continuing and hon. members can reply to the hon. member’s arguments and statements when it is their turn to speak.

Mr. Speaker, it is quite probably true that the hon. member for Pinelands and myself do not have the same contacts in Soweto, because I am not on the side of the subverters.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw them. Mr. Speaker, I want to put it like this. These layabouts are one of the greatest problems which the people of Soweto have to deal with. In fact, this is one of the greatest problems in all the Black urban residential areas. It is the layabouts who board crowded trains and steal the money and possessions of the other passengers. It is the layabouts who lie in wait for other Black people at night between their homes and their railway stations and rob them. The layabouts are the agitators. They are the people who murder and rob in our urban Black residential areas. That is why action must be taken against them. It is only in the interests of good order and of the security of the inhabitants of the urban Black residential areas.

When we look at this amendment, we see that a person who is declared a layabout and taken into custody, appears before a Bantu Affairs Commissioner. However, it is still laid down that the Bantu Affairs Commissioner before whom a Bantu appears, must investigate the allegations which are being made against such a Bantu. He must also require the Bantu concerned to give a good, satisfactory account of himself. Therefore, if someone is charged because he is not employed … I still want to see which Bantu Affairs Commissioner will find someone guilty if he says that he is registered at the labour bureau, that he is a job hunter, but that he cannot be given a job although he is prepared—and declares himself prepared—to work as soon as he can find employment.

On the contrary, I do not believe that a single law-abiding Black man will be charged in terms of section 29 of the Act if he is registered at a labour bureau and if he is an ordinary job hunter. This is not at issue. We have no quarrel with such a man. It is not his fault when he loses his job as a result of an economic recession. A person like this will not be prosecuted because it is not his own fault that he is unemployed. However, this legislation is aimed at the layabout, the man who causes trouble in the urban Black residential areas. This is what it is all about.

The hon. member for Musgrave mentioned the question of the issuing of reference books. The effect of clauses 6, 7 and 8 is that the issuing of a reference book must be made subject to South African citizenship. I do not want to put words into the hon. member’s mouth, but as I understood his request—and he must please just tell me whether this is his wish, because this is not very clear to me—he wants reference books to be issued to any foreigner who enters the country. This is how I understand the hon. member. The hon. member spoke about “foreigners”. As I have already said, I do not want to put words in his mouth, but apparently the hon. member made an appeal that all foreign Bantu who enter the country should receive reference books. Furthermore, the hon. member was very concerned about the fact that the citizens of the Transkei and Bophuthatswana are now apparently no longer able to obtain South African reference books.

I want to conclude with a word to the hon. member for Musgrave. The speeches which he and his fellow members of that party make here in the House, contain arguments which disparage the citizenship of other people. If one listens to them, one finds that when they talk about Transkei and Bophuthatswana, they are forever fighting to allow those people to retain their South African citizenship, as if citizenship of the Transkei or Bophuthatswana were inferior in comparison with South African citizenship. Sir, I want to tell you something which Black people have already told me. Those hon. members refer disparagingly to the citizenship of these independent countries, but we on this side of the House respect the citizenship of those people. That is why we shall not humiliate them by withholding their own citizenship from them and trying to force South African citizenship upon them.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Lydenburg started by extending his sympathy to the hon. member for Orange Grove. The hon. member for Orange Grove is man enough to defend himself and he also has colleagues to do so, but I, in turn, want to start by also expressing sympathy, although this time with the hon. member for Lydenburg himself. Why is it that the hon. member did not get promotion? If he is not careful, he will become a permanent front-bencher. [Interjections.] The hon. member was to have been the new Deputy Minister.

The hon. member then spoke about patriotism. I want to ask him a direct question in this respect. We in these benches are also going to vote against this legislation. Will he regard our action as an unpatriotic deed as well? I want to say to the hon. member that it is precisely this type of legislation which to my mind is unpatriotic and which does South Africa harm.

Sir, the hon. member also had much to say about idlers. I shall prove to him later that as a result of this change to the definition, clause 3 has nothing to do with idlers. In reality it deals with a specific group of Bantu who are not legally employed. That does not mean that those people are idling. I shall return to this point at a later stage, however.

† Last night in The Argus I read that when the hon. the Minister meets the homeland leaders for the first time for discussions, the agenda will be left wide open. Considering the provisions of this particular Bill, I am afraid that he will find that that agenda will already be determined, particularly when one takes into consideration a clause like clause 2. Clause 2 is in fact so punitive that any homeland leader who may in future be thinking in terms of accepting independence from this Government will immediately start to think twice about it. I am not sure whether the hon. the Minister realizes this, but this Bill is punishing those Blacks who were prepared to assist the Government in the past to develop its policy to its logical consequences. Only a few days ago the hon. the Minister said that it was one of his aims to develop the policy of the Government to its logical consequences. Let us be quite clear, Sir, that clause 2 is really aimed at the citizens of Transkei and Bophuthatswana and their children. In order to get Bophuthatswana and Transkei to accept independence from this Government, a large number of carrots had to be dangled in front of them. One of the main carrots was that it would be safe for them to accept independence because the rights and privileges in terms of section 10 would be retained. In addition, there were a number of treaties between this Government on the one hand and Bophuthatswana and Transkei on the other. A number of treaties were signed concerning preferential treatment and certain reciprocal actions, because of the fact that those people had been deprived of their South African citizenship. One simple and straightforward question must be answered: Did these erstwhile South African citizens realize that the next instalment following upon their acceptance of independence would be the forfeiture of section 10 rights for their children? Was this ever explained to them? The answer is “No”. No one has ever done so. Surely this is not the way to do business. This is not how one conducts international affairs, and these matters have already entered that sphere. The hon. the Minister has just started in his post, and as such it would perhaps be unfair to accuse him alone, but the way I interpret this Bill, the most startling fact seems to be that if our Government is now going back on its word, such actions involve an entirely new principle that we have to consider. When a Government goes back on its word, however, the whole Cabinet must accept responsibility for it. I find it totally unacceptable to let people believe one thing one year and then to do something different the next At the time these nations took independence—as recently as last year—the Act clearly stated that birth and not citizenship would form the basis for the regulation of a person’s presence in a prescribed area. If, however, one examines the elucidation of clause 2 in the explanatory memorandum, one sees that citizenship is now to be the determining factor. I have no doubt in my mind that this action is morally wrong, and that justified our opposition. The hon. member for Mooi River also raised here the question of the international legality of such a step. I do not claim to have the answer to this, but can the rights of a child born in a certain country simply be allowed to vanish into thin air, as is to happen in terms of the provisions before us today? The hon. member for Lydenburg said we are trying to cheapen citizenship of Bophuthatswana and Transkei. The boot, however, is on the other foot. Who is cheapening citizenship of those countries? It is, in fact, this Government which is doing so.

Nonsense.

That hon. member says “nonsense”. Consider, however, the following aspect. Would the children of British or American subjects who are here on a permanent residence permit simply be chucked out? The presence of those individuals here on permanent residence permits is largely comparable to the presence of non-Whites in terms of section 10. Because someone is a citizen of America, Italy or wherever, their children are not deprived of citizenship of this country if they are born here. Because they are born here, they automatically qualify for permanent residence in this country. If one happens to be a citizen of Bophuthatswana or Transkei, however, all of a sudden there is a difference. So who is cheapening citizenship of those countries? That hon. member must not come here and say that we are doing so.

Do you know what you are advocating?

Yes, I am quite sure. When one has a right which has been acquired by parents, it cannot simply disappear as the result of the unilateral actions of one State.

I want to come to clause 3. The hon. member for Lydenburg has again tried to draw a little red herring across the trail, saying that all they want to do is to act against idlers. He said: “Ons wil net teen die leeglêers optree.” Sir, this provision really used to deal with idlers, but it is now just an accident that that is referred to in this relevant section. In the past this provision dealt with people who were normally unemployed. I concede that a person who is normally unemployed—“gewoonlik werkloos”, as it says in Afrikaans—is an idler. However, this is no longer the case. This provision does not deal only with the unemployed, but with a specific category of Bantu, viz. those who are “not lawfully employed”. Let us have a look at that. How can the situation arise that a person is not employed lawfully? In many cases where people are not lawfully employed, it is purely the result of negligence by the employer. If hon. members really think back they will find that on many occasions they themselves have employed people, and have done so legally, but because of negligence on the part of the employer, for instance by omitting to fill in all the necessary forms, those people were not “lawfully employed”, as is provided for here.

Apart from negligence on the part of the employer, one may find that a Bantu who is in fact legally employed as far as employer and employee are concerned, may suddenly become “not lawfully employed” as a result of his employer contravening one of the laws of the Government. From the day on which the law is contravened, he will be “not lawfully employed”.

Give us an example.

Think of your wonderful Physical Planning Act. An employer might be legally employing a certain person and then suddenly it is discovered that he has exceeded the legal ratio between White and Black employees. From that moment on the employee concerned is unlawfully employed. That is what can happen in practice. Against whom is the punishment meted out, however? Is it the employer who gets punished? No! The person who is to be punished is the Bantu.

*I could quote various examples of this kind. As a result of negligence or as a result of contraventions by the employer the situation may arise where workers are declared to be “not lawfully employed”.

If the hon. Minister wants to take action against idlers, let him introduce legislation by means of which action can indeed be taken against the idlers. But this legislation does not take action against idlers. If he wants to take action against employers who contravene the law, let him introduce legislation which can clamp down on those people. However, to use these punitive measures against people who are not idlers is, outrageous, in my opinion.

Lastly I want to refer briefly to the question of the repeal of section 46 of the Bantu Taxation Act. That section is being repealed under clause 13. I can understand that contradictions exist as a result of financial arrangements made last year or the previous year with Transkei, but it is still not quite clear exactly on what basis the South African Government will pay money to, for example, Transkei. This is just a kind of disguised subsidy which we are not being properly informed about. Do we just have to accept it as such?

Mr. Speaker, we oppose this measure because we believe that the principle which is to some extent involved here concerns the word of the Government: It is the word of the Government of South Africa to the citizens of another country. As far as I am concerned, there is not the slightest doubt that when the states concerned accepted their independence, they did so because they believed that they and their children would retain the rights and privileges contained in section 10. If this legislation is passed, however, they will not retain them.

Mr. Speaker, there is a Dutch saying goes: “Zoo zongen de ouden, zoo piepen de jongen.” If one had listened to the speech by the hon. member for Durban Central one would have heard that it was merely a repeat of the arguments that his mentor, the hon. member for Houghton, advanced yesterday. A pattern has manifested itself this afternoon …

[Inaudible.]

It is the hon. member for Durban Point in particular who is looking terribly unhappy. I also saw how unhappy he looked when the hon. member for Durban Central was speaking. As far as the NRP is concerned, a pattern has emerged here this afternoon which I hope, in the interests of that party, will not be repeated too often because it is clear that that party is being taken in tow by the PFP. [Interjections.]

One official Opposition speaker after another—the hon. member for Durban Central included—rose and said that we on this side of the House were very surprised that the measure was being opposed and opposed as strongly as possible. We were surprised because any reasonable person would have been surprised at the opposition we encountered this afternoon. Anyone who does not know the PFP and anyone who, like myself, is a trusting person who always wants to think the best of people, would be stunned at the opposition we have encountered here this afternoon.

What do we have before us? We have before us an amendment Bill which does not contain a single new far-reaching principle. The arguments advanced by hon. members here are arguments which they have advanced against a principle which was accepted donkeys’ years ago by this Parliament. This is no new principle that is being introduced here. What we have here in this Bill is merely greater clarity in formulation, more precise definition and more administrative efficiency. Apart from that, the Bill does not give the hon. the Minister a single power which he does not already possess. The powers which hon. members are objecting to so strongly are powers which he has had for years. In this Bill are powers entrusted to the Minister by a UP Government in 1945.

The hon. the Minister is acquiring no new powers. On the contrary. The Bill contains various clauses—the hon. member for Orange Grove referred to them in passing—in terms of which the hon. the Minister is specifically foregoing powers he has had thus far. He is foregoing them in the interests of the right of increased self-determination of Bantu peoples. There are other powers which the hon. the Minister had and which are being reduced in terms of various clauses in the Bill.

Despite the fact that this is such an innocent Bill, the Opposition uses the kind of language which the hon. member for Houghton used. I noted down a few of her expressions. She said: “This Bill baffles me.” She also states—hon. members should listen to this—“It adds materially to the burden of urban Africans.” My goodness, I have read the Bill and I want to ask her: What on earth did she read in this Bill which could cause her to reach such a far-fetched conclusion? She goes on to say: “This Bill is going to increase resentment and hostility.” This is really extremely unbridled language, particularly the words: “… increase resentment and hostility.” If that kind of language achieves anything it will be more likely to fan “hostility and resentment”. She speaks about “an offensive Bill”. The hon. member for Orange Grove then followed her up and said: “We have good reason to be cynical.” He added: “We are playing with people’s lives. This Bill is without feeling of humanity for people.” This is extreme language.

Then we come to clause 3, which is apparently the really offensive clause to which the hon. member for Durban Central and other hon. members referred. This clause does not contain a single new principle or a single new power to be given to the Minister. They are not powers he did not already have. Because this clause is an amendment of section 29 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act, I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton whether she has read the foregoing section, section 28, and whether she has taken cognizance of the wide powers conferred on the Minister therein.

That section provides that if the Minister is convinced that the labour supply exceeds the demand, the Minister has the right to remove Bantu en masse from an urban area. Surely those are drastic powers. One can only shudder to think what would have happened if the hon. the Minister were to demand such powers from Parliament today, because then we should hear about Draconian measures and all the unbridled language to which we have become so accustomed. Section 29 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act relates to individuals who can be removed on certain conditions. The following words appear in the Act—

The hon. member for Durban Central and I know equally little about the science of law, but I think that even our layman’s knowledge tells us that this provision is vague in the extreme and so lacking in precision that one could drive through it with a coach and four. What does “normally unemployed” mean? In my opinion this gives the hon. the Minister very arbitrary powers. Does the provision refer to someone who has not worked for a week, or someone who has not worked for a month? When is a person “normally unemployed”? What we are doing here is curtailing the Minister’s powers. The expression “normally unemployed” is so imprecise and sets such drastic demands on any court that it simply cannot be carried out. That is why it is essential—any reasonable person will understand this—that the expression must be more clearly defined. That, then, is all that this clause, which is causing so much offence, does: It defines more clearly what “normally unemployed” means by defining that an idle person is someone who has been unemployed for 122 days over a period of a year. If the Opposition wants to be reasonable, they can at most argue with us whether it is reasonable that someone who is unemployed for 122 days per annum can be described as an idle person. That is the issue here. One cannot reject the principle, because that was accepted long ago. To see in the legislation sinister powers which the hon. the Minister is arrogating to himself, and to read into it something which it does not contain, is to conjure up spectres which exist solely in the imagination of that party.

We were amazed at the opposition, because the content of the Bill in no way justifies the drastic opposition. Indeed, one can ask oneself: Why the opposition? Why do we get the strongest possible opposition allowed for by the rules of the House against the Bill? I should not like to be unfriendly, nor should I like to impute all kinds of motives …

May I put a question to the hon. member?

Certainly.

Does the hon. member find a difference between the word “normally unemployed” and “not lawfully employed”?

If anyone is unlawfully employed, surely there is other legislation in terms of which he may be dealt with. The hon. the Minister is acquiring no new powers in this connection. The words “unlawfully employed” surely provide that the Minister has certain powers to act and he is therefore acquiring no new powers. I hope the hon. member for Durban Point is not arguing that we should employ people unlawfully. I could not imagine the hon. member for Durban Point wanting to condone unlawful employment of people. I thought I knew the hon. member as someone who was a strong advocate of the maintenance of law and order and that he would make a very strong plea for us to act against people being employed unlawfully. In my opinion the answer we must find for the strong opposition to the Bill evinced by the ranks of the Opposition is to be found in the overwhelming reception which the hon. the Minister’s speech was accorded last week, in particular the reception it was accorded in the Press, and in their Press as well. I do not believe it suits the PFP’s purpose that such an image of the hon. Minister be built up. They do not like the hon. the Minister being so highly praised and it does not suit their purpose. They do not want to have an image of a Minister who is a reasonable man and who will serve the interests of the Black man. This image must be destroyed; it must be chopped; it may not be given a chance. An image of him as an obstinate, inflexible, dogmatic person must be conjured up, a person whose sole aim is to make the life of the Black man unpleasant and difficult.

When will the Opposition learn that this tactic simply does not work. It is the tactic they have been adopting for years, and look at them now! It has not done them any good. They have not hurt the Government; we have become stronger. What they have managed to do, however, is to hurt South Africa. They are building up a distorted image of our country. They are prejudicing ethnic relations in South Africa by means of the suspicion they are sowing. That is why I want to say to the Opposition: Make an end of these methods. According to this afternoon’s Argus the hon. member for Bezuidenhout said that something dramatic would have to be done to improve the image of South Africa. There is much that the Government must do to improve that image. The Opposition also has a contribution to make and it has failed dismally in that regard in the debate this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the speech of the hon. member for Lydenburg. He accuses this side of the House of making out that the Government has evil intentions. I would like to ask the hon. member, if I may, whether he regards this Bill as a measure of goodwill towards the Bantu people of South Africa.

Yes.

The hon. member says that it is a measure of goodwill and that we are wrong in saying that it has evil intentions. In that case, would the hon. member then not be prepared to leave the Bill exactly as it is, because it is the conclusion of this side of the House, supported by the NRP, that it in fact does have evil intentions?

The hon. member also accuses us of being unpatriotic. I want to refute this in the strongest possible terms. I want to tell the hon. member that we on this side of the House are just as patriotic as he is … [Interjections.] In fact, many of us have proved our patriotism to South Africa in more ways than the hon. member has done. We also heard the old story again that the moment the Government comes with ill-considered and ill-conceived legislation and the Opposition attacks it and our opinions are published, it is we who are creating a bad image for South Africa. This argument is untenable. The root cause is not those who speak against it, but those who legislate and initiate it. They are the people who are engendering ill-will against South Africa, and that is where it should be cured.

The hon. member says there is no change at all of the principle already contained in the Act. However, with respect, his own colleague, the hon. member for Brakpan, does not agree with him. The hon. member for Brakpan went so far as to refer to the case of the State v. Palm Lakha, 1965, and the way in which the court at that stage defined the words “normally employed”. The hon. member for Brakpan quoted that the court defined it as follows—

*Later in his speech the hon. member said (Hansard, 6 February)—

† Because of the fact that there is a measure of discretion which is left to the Bantu Commissioner to be lenient, which lets the man off the hook as it were, the hon. member is now trying to argue before the House that a strict provision setting out the period of 122 days, is not a change in the principle or in the interpretation. That is exactly what it is and what we are objecting to.

The hon. member says the Bill is aimed particularly at the idle. As far as the idle are concerned, it is set out very clearly in section 29 of the Bantu (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act what the idle is. There is also a distinction, as the hon. member knows, between the idle and the undesirable. Subsection (2) of section 29 deals with the undesirable, those who have been convicted. The hon. member is referring to the subparagraphs of section 29(2)(a) which states—

1. (ii) has on three consecutive occasions refused or failed without lawful cause to accept suitable employment …
2. (iii) has on more than two occasions during any period of six months, after having taken up employment offered to him by a labour bureau, failed due to his own misconduct, neglect, intemperance or laziness, to keep such employment for at least one month …
3. (iv) has on more than three occasions over any period of one year been discharged from employment due to his own misconduct …

Section 29 further provides that a person can be “idle” if he drinks, is on drugs or is a beggar. My experience with the Bantu Commissioner’s court during the times I have been there, is that this section is applied mostly to those who are beggars, in order to get them off the streets, and those who are the real idle, who are not working. However, if this measure is aimed at the idle—as the hon. member has said—it now labels every single person who is unemployed in terms of para. (a) as idle. That is where the mistake lies: we are tarring them all with the same brush because there are a few who are idle. Maybe there are a few who are idle and who should be taken care of. I do not know, but that is not our cry. Our cry is that the Government is tarring them all with the same brush. This is what the objection is. The hon. member for Port Natal is a little surprised that our friends on the left, the NRP, are supporting the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton. This shows that the conclusion which has been arrived at by us, the official Opposition, has been arrived at, completely independently and separately, also by other hon. members in the House. Having come to the same conclusion, they support, as they do, the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton to defer the Bill six months hence.

The hon. member for Port Natal also says that this legislation has been introduced by the UP in 1945. I want to ask him whether legislation which was considered proper 30 years ago can be considered expedient and proper 30 years after 1945. Can he say that the situation—the aspirations, the advancement and the welfare of the Black people in South Africa—is the same in 1978 as in 1945? If that is his mentality, it shows their weakness as legislators, because their approach is wrong. He also quoted from the previous section 28 concerning the removal of other Bantu from the area as well. We are not debating that issue now, but if we were and if it were a new principle, we would oppose it tooth and nail, because it should not be applicable in 1978.

I want to address the hon. the Minister. In all humility, being a new boy in this House, I want to tell him that I am shocked and amazed that he has introduced such a Bill. I believe that it is cruel, inhuman, unjust and discriminatory. In addition, it is ill-judged and badly timed. Therefore I strongly support the motion moved by the hon. member for Houghton. The hon. the Minister should be defusing the situation in South Africa where there is now indictment.

The 8 million Blacks in the cities have pinned their hopes and aspirations upon the hon. the Minister, as did members of the White, Coloured and Indian communities in South Africa. I prayed that the hon. the Minister would be appointed by the Prime Minister to occupy this post, because I believe that the future of all of us would evolve around him who has to handle this portfolio, and because the future of this country will depend on how he deals with the Black community. I believe this hon. Minister has the power, the charisma and the will to set a new course in Bantu Administration, a course that will lead to peaceful and happy coexistence. What do we find instead? We find that section 2 now deprives the Bantu from the homeland of his xirthright. Is the hon. the Minister prepared to discuss this with the homeland leaders who, as I understand from the news reports, he is to meet on Wednesday?

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will argue past the statutes of Bophuthatswana and of Transkei, Acts Nos. 176 and 89 of 1977. Section 6(4) of Act 89 reads—

I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he is prepared to explain this away to the homeland leaders. Does he for one moment think that they are going to accept it? Coupled with this section, there is the right to remain and the right to be employed, so, what is the policy? What is behind this? Is it to remove the Blacks from the Republic and to send them to the homelands? What is the hon. the Minister’s attitude towards the presence of Blacks in urban areas? Did everyone misread the situation? The hon. member said, and I quote from his Hansard—

I want to ask whether this is the way in which he is going to find a way of solving the problems which lie before us.

I now turn to clause 3. The provisions contained in clause 3 are cruel and harsh. Firstly, it fails to distinguish between the “can’t works” and the “won’t works”. The “idle” was aimed at the vagrant; it was aimed at the beggar and, as I have said earlier, I have witnessed this on many occasions, but now this has gone much further and the discretion of the Bantu Commissioner is taken away. Section 29 is clear. It sets out very clearly how the person is to be declared idle and what is to happen to him. I think it was the hon. member for Brakpan who actually went so far as to say: “Well, they can appeal.” However, the hon. member for Brakpan may not be quite aware of the provisions of section 15, which state that the provisions of the law relating to appeals and to any form of review in criminal cases shall mutatis mutandis apply in respect of any order made under paragraphs (b), (c), (d) or (f). There is a distinct omission with regard to paragraph (a). As regards paragraph (a), with which section 7 is concerned, it states “By warrant addressed to any member of the S.A. Police, order that such Bantu be removed from the area concerned.” So, where there is a removal order, he has no right to appeal. How many Blacks who appear before a Bantu Commissioner’s court have the funds, the know-how or the ability, and how many of them have legal representation? When they are picked up in the street or elsewhere, they are charged with being idle under section 29 and 50, 60 or 70 of them stand in a queue in terms of section 29, order A, order B, marking their time. How many of them have legal representation, let alone the funds to lodge an appeal? This is therefore a fallacy. It is unjust, because the hon. the Minister referred to an aggregate and the aggregate here with regard to the 122 days means that within any previous 12 calendar months the 122 days can be calculated. A person who is willing, and trying hard, to obtain employment may find himself in the situation where he cannot. He may have had an accident, an accident due to his work and because of that they have laid him off. He is no longer employed. Because he was injured at the time of his employment he has lost his employment and now he loses his rights and he is sent away under section 29. Is this what the hon. the Minister intends with this legislation? It is unfair as far as subsection (b) is concerned, because the proviso now goes further. It goes so far as to say that this does not apply to a first offender. I want to object, if I may, in the strongest possible terms, to this provision as well, because a fundamental principle is being negated, a principle which is used in every single criminal court in South Africa and in other civilized Western countries as well. This is, namely, that a person convicted and having been found guilty before a court, the first plea in mitigation is to tell the court that this is a first offender. This first basic legal right is being taken away, a legal principle which is available to a man is being removed by what is being done here.

The hon. member says that this legislation has no evil intentions. However, I want to tell the hon. the Minister that this measure is discriminatory. It is discriminatory and I want to ask the hon. member a simple question. Is he prepared to support a similar measure from other members of the Cabinet applying to White people? If they are idle for 122 days, is he prepared to support measures such as these? If he is not prepared to support that, he is being discriminatory towards the Blacks who cannot find work, who have more difficulty in finding work. I therefore say that it is a discriminatory measure which we cannot accept. At least as far as the Whites are concerned, they can sign up for two years, they can be taken into the Army. But where do the Blacks go? Is the hon. the Minister of Defence going to provide facilities in the Army to take up all the unemployed Blacks so that they too can be gainfully employed in the defence of the country for a period of two years? Then I want to tell the hon. the Minister that this is badly timed because, in addition to all the other considerations, I can say that I can talk—though not with much authority, but perhaps with a little experience—of Soweto. I was a party to the administration of Soweto and to its direct control for a period of some 10 years. I have attended the Urban Bantu Council meetings. I read their minutes. I have heard their discussions. I have listened to their deputations and I was in touch with them on many occasions. I want to bring it to the attention of the hon. the Minister that I have seen a change in attitude among the urban Blacks of Soweto. I believe that the sensitivity with which the Johannesburg city council administered Soweto is now absent from the administration as exercised by the Bantu Administration Boards. There is a measure of apprehension, a measure of suspicion and a measure of fear. More recently we have seen the dissatisfaction with the education system. How will this be interpreted by the children and the parents in the Bantu townships? How many Blacks between the ages of 15 and 21 attend school today? There are many of them. Among them this is not uncommon. Will this now not be interpreted as meaning that if they are going to stay away from school, if they are going to show protest, as they have done in the past, the intention is now to enforce the 122 days’ provision in order to force such children to go back to school? Is that the intention behind the clause?

You are conjuring up a lot of spectres, aren’t you!

I refer now to the breakdown as far as Soweto is concerned. I am describing to the hon. the Minister the tension and the mood among the people of Soweto. Not only from the stay-away from schools, the breakdown of services … June 16 and all that goes with it will be indelibly written into the history of South Africa. The breakdown of services, the refuse heaps, the health hazards, the lack of funds, the lack of adequate housing … We heard in this House only the other day that only 422 houses were built in Soweto and that they have a waiting list of something like 20 000 people needing accommodation. Is this the mood? The hon. the Minister should understand the mood of the people. He should take note of the 4 a.m. queues of people going to work, the long queues of people waiting to get back home, the boycotts of central shopping areas, the banning of the newspaper, The World, which was their only newspaper, the detention of the committee of Ten and people like Percy Qoboza, the attitude of the communal council, etc. Does the hon. the Minister not take not of the fact that only five out of 30 wards are being contested. Then, according to information, one may not divulge the name of the candidate. For what reason?

Speak to the Bill!

For what reason must this not be done? Is the hon. the Minister not aware that a special committee for unemployment has been set up? Here, with regard to unemployment, I refer to an article which appeared in The Star on 10 January, in which the unemployment problem—not only amongst the Whites, but particularly amongst the Blacks—is described as being so acute that a special meeting was called at which 200 people crowded into a room, some even standing at the back. Among them were leaders of all sections of the community who got together in order to discuss and in order to try to solve the acute unemployment problem. They formed a committee which is trying to find ways and means of obtaining gainful employment for all the people.

Is this the mood in which a Bill like this is being introduced? In terms of the Minister’s own statement, I call upon him please to consult the people of Soweto. There are still leaders there, and at the very least I urge him to hold this matter over until such time as he has had a chance to debate the report of the Cilliá Commission. The whole purpose of the Cilliá Commission, which took voluminous evidence from hundreds of people, was to investigate the very situation of the urban Blacks. Until the Minister is able to put his finger on the mood of the people and the tensions surrounding them, I suggest that he hold this over to give himself an opportunity to study this report. Soweto is the barometer of all Black townships in the Republic, and I believe that the sensitivity to which I have referred exists in all other Black townships as well. Mr. Speaker, I ask the hon. the Minister to ask himself: Is this the way to win the trust and the co-operation of even moderate Black leaders? Is this the way to eliminate friction? I urge upon the hon. the Minister that he should show the Blacks a sign of goodwill and faith and that he should show South Africa that he has the courage to undo the wrongs of the past and to do the right thing in the future. I urge the Minister to withdraw this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member for Hillbrow will excuse me if I do not follow his train of thought. He has chased out half the members of the House and if I follow him, I shall chase out the other half. [Interjections.] I am going to be critical, but I hope to adopt a far more constructive attitude than some members in the official Opposition have been able to adopt.

*This is the first opportunity we in this party have to welcome the hon. Minister in his new capacity. It seems to me that he has stepped on a prickly pear today. We have reached the stage where, as far as legislation with regard to race and colour is concerned, it will not be in South Africa’s best interests to hurl arguments about such legislation across the floor of this House or to accuse one another. I think we are all mature enough to realize that we have a responsibility to settle the matter with the department or the Minister, even before a debate. Where we cannot see eye to eye and agree with one another, I believe that the obvious thing to do is to appoint a Select Committee, as might also have been done in this case. In practice it might sound impossible, but let us look at what happened last year. In 1977 the Opposition party which opposed most of the Bills during the Second Reading nevertheless managed to support about 74% of the legislation that was introduced in the House. If we take into account that the remaining 26% of the legislation which was not supported, did not deal only with matters of race and colour, my request is not an unreasonable or impossible one.

† There are many features of this particular Bill with which we have no difficulty whatsoever. In fact, they bring about a distinct improvement. Many of the members on both sides of the House have said so. There is, however, one matter which we are unhappy about. It may well be that the hon. the Minister can clear this up during the course of this debate. A point which has been raised by other hon. members, and which remains unresolved despite the speeches coming from the Government side, is that clause 3 seems to make periodic unemployment in itself a penalizing factor. We are in a period of recession, and this state of affairs has existed for some time. I have no sympathy for the “won’t works”, the lazy and the idle, and neither does this party have any sympathy with them, but what about the person who has become a victim of this recession? Surely persons who have been discharged in good faith, who seek employment and who can prove that they are unable to find employment in 122 days out of the preceding 12 months should be able to demonstrate their bona fides without any difficulty. They should be able to show to the satisfaction of all that they are in fact work-seekers. A person who is a bona fide work-seeker should be able to prove beyond any doubt that the inability to obtain work is the result of circumstances beyond his control.

Under the existing legislation, persons could be removed if they were normally unemployed, but if abnormal economic conditions render employment impossible, under existing legislation the persons concerned would not be moved. In terms of the present clause, of course, they will be moved. The way we understand the measure, different considerations now apply and the accent falls on the prescribed time limit as laid down in clause 3. As I have said to the hon. the Minister, at this point in time we are unhappy about this particular provision, though we are not unhappy about the Bill as a whole. We therefore urge the hon. the Minister to consider amending this clause in the Committee Stage because we feel that the Bill is worth supporting. Our feeling is only that this particular clause should be amended. We feel that the positive aspects of this Bill outweigh the negative aspects. In clause 3 the hon. the Minister defines unemployment, but we are not satisfied with that definition. We do not, however, believe that these are sufficient grounds for rejecting the Bill. Under the circumstances this measure consequently has our support.

Mr. Speaker, before I reply to the debate I first want to avail myself of this opportunity to express my thanks to the hon. members who participated in the debate. In particular I want to say a few words to the hon. member for Albany who deemed it appropriate to make his maiden speech in this debate. I think it was a very neat speech. He examined, analysed and elucidated a single clause thoroughly. He analysed it in practical terms. I was able to perceive at once that he was a man with a legal background. With his practical approach he was therefore able to make a very good, positive contribution, and I want to thank him for having spoken in this specific debate.

Before I come to the general questions there is something I first want to say to the hon. member for Musgrave. He saw fit to take me to task because I had allegedly said too little about this Bill in my Second Reading speech. However, I indicated very clearly in my speech that this Bill did not contain one specific, identifiable principle which was relevant to the Second Reading. After all, the Parliamentary system makes provision for matters which are of an ideological nature and are based on a specific principle to be thrashed out as a standpoint of principle during the Second Reading. Because this Bill did not have such a specific, identifiable principle, which we would have been able to debate during the Second Reading, I proceeded from the standpoint that I would not conduct a Committee Stage during the Second Reading by analysing the Bill clause by clause. What is the Committee Stage there for? That is why I simply indicated, as briefly as was practicable, what was being affected by the Bill and said that this was, in the nature of things, a Bill which could best be debated during the Committee Stage.

Sounds like an excuse to me.

But now I am being criticized for having done so. In any case, to strengthen my argument, an explanatory memorandum which does give members the particulars has been placed on each member’s desk. In general it is said that the explanatory memorandum is not substantial enough, but the fact remains that there is an explanatory memorandum and that this is pre-eminently a Bill which should be debated during the Committee Stage. I therefore reject the hon. member’s reprimand that I should have said more in my Second Reading speech.

I want to come now to the Bill itself. What did the official Opposition do with this Bill, and now I am referring in particular to the hon. member for Houghton, who was the first speaker. What, precisely, did she do with this Bill? A week ago I made my debut in this new capacity and made an appeal to everyone in South Africa to make a fresh start and see whether we cannot understand one another and move closer to one another so that we could solve this problem by means of dialogue and discussion—it is everyone’s problem, Black, White, Brown and Yellow— in a spirit of joint responsibility and mutual discussion. That is the spirit in which I spoke. I then thought that the Official Opposition would also approach future debates concerning this department in the same spirit That is indeed what I asked for. But what did we get from the hon. member for Houghton? Was she prepared to give this Bill any chance at all? She saw fit to single out two clauses immediately, clauses which could be used for propaganda, viz. clauses 2 and 3, and to suck all the venom she was able to from them by presenting them in as radically distorted a way as was practicable. I shall demonstrate this in a moment. All the other clauses she ignored.

We are back to square one!

Please, just give me a chance. The medicine is still coming. I have hardly begun. How much more value, infinitely more, would I not have attached to it if, like any well-balanced person and as the main speaker of her party on this matter, she had thrown light on the positive aspects of the Bill! Why did she not discuss clause 1, in which we make it easier for the Black man, by means of a Bantu Affairs Commissioner’s court, to obtain a judgment against a person who owes him money, whether it be another Bantu, a White, a Coloured or an Asiatic? Why did she have no praise for this clause by means of which we are making matters easier for the Black man? Why did she not at least pay tribute to clauses 4 and 5, in terms of which powers of exemption from any or all of the provisions of the legislation are being placed in the hands of the Minister, precisely in order to make it easier to implement Clause 12 makes provision for the indemnification against losses by business or industrial undertakings if they invest and undertake development in the homelands. Why was nothing said about that? Clause 13 provides that taxation levied in the White area on citizens of Transkei, shall be paid over to the Government of Transkei. Surely this is a positive step. Clauses 14 to 18 provide that powers which are at present vested in the State President may be transferred to the Legislative Assemblies of the homelands. Surely these are all positive steps! How much more value could I not then have attached to positive criticism of clauses 2 and 3. How much more value could I not have attached to it if the hon. member, in a well-balanced speech, had also singled out these things and had told the world at large that at least there were positive things in this legislation as well. Since she pointed out only the negative aspects, I want to suggest that her method is not in the interests of South Africa. I do not want to dictate to the hon. member how she should debate, but I do want to tell her that, if she is really patriotic towards South Africa, she would have considered the good and the bad together, and would not have pointed out only the negative aspects. [Interjections.]

There are none so blind as they who do not wish to see!

I want to make an appeal to the official Opposition.

† We must get a change of heart also in the approach of the Opposition to affairs concerning Black people in South Africa. If we really want to solve the problems of this country and co-operate as people living in one country, surely there should be a change of heart on the part of the Opposition in respect of how they approach measures such as this.

*They can still look at matters critically, but they must not merely condemn, be derogatory and negative. Let them approve and lend their support and then attack. Everyone will then have a better understanding, and adopt a more positive attitude to the whole matter.

How did the hon. member for Houghton deal with this specific problem? When a certain problem presents itself, whatever problem it may be, when contraventions occur or a matter has to be rectified, the legislature naturally has to cast the net over as wide an area as possible to make sure that there will be no loopholes which will allow people who ought to be in the net to escape. Consequently it has to be stated as widely as possible. Although one then has wide powers, one will apply these with discretion to those who are really transgressing. However, the net has to be cast over a wide area, otherwise people who ought to be caught in the net will escape. The penalties are then outlined and once again there will be light penalties and heavy penalties, depending on the nature of the offence. Surely that is the way laws are made. Then one applies that criterion as a responsible, well-balanced person with discretion. But what does the hon. member for Houghton do? She takes the most unlikely person who could theoretically perhaps be affected by the legislation, viz. an unemployed child of 16. She quotes from the original Act the kind of steps which are normally reserved for a chronic work-shy individual or vagrant. Such a person can for example, be sent away for two years, be banished completely from the area, etc. Then she says that this is what we will do with similar innocent children. That is the way in which she presents it. This is not in the interests of South Africa, for I am convinced—I am now speaking in my other capacity—that this will be exploited overseas in that it will be said that South Africa will send 16-year-old unemployed children to work colonies for two years, etc. That is the effect it will have. The hon. member herself knows that the people who will implement this legislation are not people who bear any malice towards the Blacks.

Did you go to Modderdam?

That is why I want to repeat my appeal to the Opposition and ask them in a very courteous and respectable way: Let us please be reasonable about this matter. Criticize where criticism is necessary. We are not perfect. We are going to make mistakes and take the wrong decisions. They can help us to take the right decisions and I shall listen to them with an open mind; but then their approach should please be positive, and not as negative as it was today and the day before.

Let us consider clause 2, which all the fuss is about. It attaches more value to a person’s citizenship than to his place of birth. That is the object of the clause. It wants to attach more value to a person’s citizenship than to his place of birth. Allow me to test this against international standards. After all, we do not wish to discriminate against Black people. What determines the rights of a Frenchman or a Swede, his place of birth or his citizenship? That is the question I am asking. A Frenchman may have been born in any country in the world, but if he has French citizenship, he is a French citizen and is proud of the fact. The same applies to a Swede. Why should the place of birth now be made the decisive factor here, while citizenship is decried? I accuse the Opposition of blatant discrimination against Black people in South Africa. That is what they are doing. If the place of birth is accepted as criterion, it could lead to all kinds of indefensible deviations. In this way, for example, a birthplace can be a place which was formerly within the borders of South Africa, but as a result of the development of new Bantu homelands now falls outside South Africa. Where will such a person be born: In or outside South Africa? However, if one accepts citizenship as the standard and the norm, one is accepting an international norm. Why may I not apply this norm to the Black people of South Africa? I refuse to discriminate against them, Mr. Speaker. The PFP is discriminating against the Blacks. They regard the Black man as inferior; that is why his citizenship is not important to them. That is the angle from which those hon. members see this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go further. In this case we are going to treat the Black people of countries that have become independent as citizens of those countries. What is wrong with that? Let me advance another argument. The arrangements and privileges as far as former South African citizens of Transkei and Bophuthatswana are concerned remain standing as agreed upon. Right at the outset of my career in this post I want to present the following image to hon. members. I see the areas which were originally within the Republic of South Africa, and which become independent, as a family of nations to whom more privileges and more concessions are granted than to people who are or were not members of that family.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member must not put words in my mouth which I did not utter. It is a family of nations and although not identical to it is more or less according to the same pattern as that of the old Commonwealth of Nations. In the past we and various countries were members of the Commonwealth of Nations and there were special privileges in respect of Commonwealth citizens and in respect of Commonwealth countries on the one hand and Britain on the other. But this was not the case with countries that were not members of the Commonwealth. In this way I should like to see the homelands that have become independent as fully independent States, and the homelands which are still with us, as a family of nations among whom a special tie exists and which differ from the rest of the foreign States in Africa and in the world towards whom we do not have those obligations. That is as I would like to see it. What are the kind of privileges which remain unchanged? Examples of such preferential treatment are: Preferential treatment over other foreign Blacks as to employment opportunities; extended right of entry, viz. 14 days instead of 72 hours; admission to the RSA through any place of entry while foreigners have to enter at specific points which are manned by officials of the Department of the Interior, etc. These are privileges which these people have and which we should like to retain.

I want to ask the hon. member for Hillbrow—and I want to tell him at once that he should be careful for more people talked themselves to death in this House than died from remaining silent—whether he would attach any value to it if I had consulted homeland leaders about the legislation? Would he attach any value to it if they had adopted a standpoint in regard to it? I am asking him and I should like an answer. Would he attach any value to it?

Yes.

The hon. member says “Yes”. Mr. Speaker, let me give him the surprise of his life: We did consult the homeland leaders. The draft legislation, as we have it before us today, was sent to all the homeland Cabinets and not a single word of objection was raised either to clause 2 or clause 3—neither of the two. And now? The hon. member says that he attaches value to the standpoint of the homeland leaders. Well, here we have the standpoint of the homeland leaders.

Hon. members attacked the citizenship clause. Section 12 of Act 25 of 1945 deals with the right of entry into prescribed areas, not with entry into South Africa. The protection which is afforded in terms of section 10, however many sanctimonious things may have been said about it, does not grant any rights of citizenship to Bantu. It comprises merely a group exemption from influx control. That is all it amounts to, and it remains in force; it is not affected.

Since I am now discussing citizenship, I want to turn my attention to the arguments which the hon. member for Durban Central raised in this regard. The hon. member for Durban Central maintained that the children of Whites who have permanent residence in South Africa automatically become South African citizens.

No. They have permanent residence here …

Yes, but what about citizenship?

They remain citizens of their country.

As it happens we now find ourselves in the domain of the Department of the Interior, and it is one that I know well; the new one I still have to learn about. The children of citizens of any other country who have permanent residence in South Africa may be registered in South Africa and may in this way acquire South African citizenship, but it is the task of the parents to do so. However, the children of Whites who do not have permanent residence in South Africa, even though they have a work permit and have been working here for ten years on a temporary basis under a work permit, cannot under any circumstances be registered as South African citizens. That is the situation according to the provisions of the South African Citizenship Act.

I am not using that Act as an example.

Very well. Let us continue. Even if such a person has stayed in South Africa for ten years, the same will still apply. It must be borne in mind that the White citizen who obtains permanent South African residence has applied for permanent residence on a form. His application is weighed against the advantages and against the rights of people who are already citizens of South Africa. Whether a need exists for a person with this man’s specific qualifications have already been established by the Immigrants’ Selection Board. If there is anything negative about that person, they refuse him permanent residence. Consequently it is a fact that any person who obtains permanent residence in South Africa and whose children that were born in South Africa therefore have the privilege of becoming South African citizens by means of registration, is a person who has been very closely scrutinized by a special committee for immigrants. However, this is not the case in regard to Black people. To my mind the Black people fall more readily into the category of people who are working in South Africa under a work permit. They have not been screened or scrutinized individually by a committee to establish who and what they are. They have entered the country and have obtained certain rights. In my opinion the Black person does not therefore fall into the same cadre as the Whites who apply for permanent residence in South Africa and who are screened individually.

To my mind the Black person who enters the country in this way falls more readily into the cadre of a person who remains in the country for quite a long period and who works here under a work permit. Now I want to accord equal treatment to Whites and Blacks. The children of Whites working in South Africa under work permits cannot under any circumstances be registered as citizens of South Africa. My question now is: Why should I then treat Black people any differently? The rights of the citizens of Transkei and Bophuthatswana who are in South Africa, remain unchanged, but children born in South Africa out of a marriage between two Transkeians after independence surely cannot perpetuate the right for all times.

Are you comparing the citizen of Transkei and Bophuthatswana who has permanent residence in terms of section 10 of the Act not with the White person who has permanent residence but in fact with a person who has a work permit?

The difference lies clearly in the fact that that person who has obtained permanent residence in terms of section 10 has not been screened by a committee or something of that nature. He has obtained residence on the basis of practices and traditions over the years. The Whites, however, are screened individually, while this is not done in the case of the Black person, and for that reason I am drawing the distinction. [Interjections.] I did not interrupt hon. members when they were speaking; I kept quiet. They will have to give me credit for that I sat listening to them without saying a word. There are many other examples to which I can refer.

Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill clearly give the Minister the right to grant exemption to individuals or to categories of which he approves. This therefore imparts a further flexibility, fluidity and suppleness to the measure. If a person really experiences problems in regard to the application of the legislation, clause 5 makes a supple handling of the situation possible so that the Minister may even exclude a category of persons. Theoretically, therefore, negotiations can take place between the Transkeian Government and the South African Government on the children of Transkeians who are born here. If the Minister should deem fit, clause 5 of the Bill grants him the right to exclude all the children from the provisions of the legislation, precisely because he acquires the right to exclude a category of persons. Surely that is clear. However, this is not stated by the opposite side. The impression is simply being created here that action with a cruel hand in the worst form is going to be taken here. I reject such a view with the contempt which it deserves and in the spirit in which I have undertaken the administration of the department.

I want to go further. I have dealt with the question of the descendants of Transkeian citizens. Surely their children cannot enjoy the same rights in perpetuity. The wording of the Bill, viz. “former citizens” is entirely correct. The hon. member for Houghton asked me to omit the word “former”. I say it has to remain, for if it were omitted, we might have to deal with a very difficult situation. We have no say over, nor do we wish to have any say over who the Governments of Transkei and Bophuthatswana accord citizenship to in their countries. They have full say over their own citizenship. Theoretically the Government of Bophuthatswana can grant citizenship in Bophuthatswana to 500 000 or 600 000 citizens of Botswana. If this happens and the Bill were to be amended as the hon. member is asking me to do, those thousands of people who are now citizens of Botswana will have the privilege of entering South Africa and ousting our own citizens of non-independent homelands and the citizens of Bophuthatswana from their work. This will be a way of getting in through the back door and finding work here in terms of the privileges which we have reserved for former citizens of South Africa. Does the hon. member have any objection to that? [Interjections.] We have no control over the citizenship of independent homelands. Transkei may grant citizenship to whomsoever it wishes. It can grant citizenship to Whites, Russians, Chinese or even communists. In such a case those people are citizens of the country and I must allow them to enter South Africa, regardless of who they are, for they enjoy this advantage. The hon. member for Houghton must not shake her head.

I shall gladly argue the matter with her during the Committee Stage. These are the facts of the matter, however, and that is why the legislation provides very clearly that it should be “former” citizens of South Africa. We do not wish to throw these privileges open to everyone. We do not want to impose any restrictions on those Governments as to whom they wish to grant citizenship of their own country to. That is their right as independent States. However, I wish to protect South Africa against an influx of undesirable persons. The former citizens of South Africa who are now citizens of the independent homelands and who have accepted the citizenship of those countries, are not unacceptable to me in South Africa. But communists and other people whom these countries could perhaps in their wisdom grant citizenship to in the years which lie ahead, I do find undesirable. That is the attitude which is being adopted here and which is not, as usual, being comprehended by the hon. member. [Interjections.]

Clauses 4 and 5 make provision, as I have already said, for exemptions and for persons in all kinds of categories. I want to repeat that, in the spirit in which I am undertaking this task, I shall administer this legislation with humanity. The hon. members must please give me a chance to try to demonstrate this. The hon. members must please not write me off in advance because there are measures which can be abused.

Suppose Andries takes over from you.

In such a case he will administer the legislation just as humanely because he is also a human being. I want to leave clause 2. I think the matter is very clear and we can in any event discuss the matter further during the Committee Stage.

Clause 3 deals with the question of unemployment. The hon. member for Houghton is once again implying that this provision is a covert way of getting rid of unemployed persons who would like to work and who, as a result of the economic conditions, are not able to find work. But what are the facts? The hon. member for Houghton, or the hon. member for Pinelands, also wanted to know whether this was not perhaps a covert method of beginning, in the meantime, to tamper with the rights of section 10 cases.

It was merely a question to which I should like to have an answer.

I shall reply to it now. Persons who are in a prescribed area in contravention of sections 10 and 12, or who may be removed from the prescribed area in terms of the procedure in section 14, can be dealt with in many other ways. They can for example be referred in terms of section 25 of the Bantu Labour Act to an aid centre until their affairs can be set in order. A large number of surplus workers can be removed from a prescribed area with far less trouble by making use of section 28 of the Act, as the hon. member for Port Natal clearly indicated. It can be done with far less trouble than, as section 29 provides, to adopt the lengthy procedures of instituting legal proceedings simply to have a person removed. If I have evil intentions of getting rid of a multitude of people who have no work at the moment, why would I go so far as to effect this amendment? I could do it in terms of section 28 which at present empowers me to do so. It would not have been necessary to tamper with this. The idea here is once again to clamp down on those people who could specifically cause us problems. The discretion is still vested in the Bantu Commissioner. The period which is being laid down in clause 3 is 122 days during the preceding year. But the Bantu Affairs Commissioner is under no obligation to take immediate action against a person who was unemployed for 123 days of the previous year. The legislation does not provide that he should then be immediately removed.

Is it not true that he has to declare himself unemployed under the existing Act?

No, I do not think so. We can go into the matter. I do not want to suggest that I am already conversant with all the legislation. It may be the case. I shall make certain about this by asking my officials. The hon. member submits that if this is the case, he has to declare himself unemployed.

[Inaudible.]

I shall go into it. We can discuss the matter further during the Committee Stage. I am not yet fully conversant with that part of the amendment Bill. I do not think the hon. member can expect me to become conversant within a week with that thick Statute Book which she has with her there.

I want to ask the hon. member for Houghton: Should something be done about vagrants and people who are work-shy?

No …

I shall ask the question again. Is it her opinion that something should be done with vagrants and work-shy people in the Bantu residential areas?

Under existing legislation you can do something.

Must I do something?

If they really are layabouts, you must do something.

Is the hon. member saying that I must do something?

[Inaudible.]

I want to put a question to the hon. member for Hillbrow. He served on the Johannesburg City Council as member of the Bantu Advisory Council on behalf of the city council. Does he attach any value to what the advisory council has to say as spokesmen for the Blacks? A few minutes ago I put a question to him on the homeland leaders, and I am now putting a question to him on the urban Bantu of whom he has more knowledge. Does he attach any value to the standpoints of advisory councils in the Bantu areas? After all, he did serve on the Johannesburg City Council. Do these people speak on behalf of their people or not? He is now sitting as quietly as a mouse; he is afraid because I already have the answer to that question. With me here I have the minutes of a meeting of the advisory council of one of our urban Bantu areas. I am not going to mention its name because I do not want to run the risk of intimidation.

What is the date on it?

The date on it is 6 February 1978. Two names are mentioned here which I am not going to disclose. I quote from these minutes—

By this advisory council—

Why then did you ask me?

I asked the hon. member because he said that he was acquainted with the urban Bantu. [Interjections.] The hon. member is not going to get out of it so easily. I put only one question to him, namely whether he attaches any value to the standpoint of advisory councils in the Bantu areas. On 6 February this specific advisory council asked for precisely what this Bill is now envisaging.

No.

This amendment Bill is aimed at dealing with those people, at casting the nets over as wide an area as possible and at acting with humanity within those limits. [Interjections.]

What happens in practice? As soon as one clamps down on a vagrant, he tells you that he did in fact, have work, but that he had not been registered by his employer, something for which he is not to blame. They then claim that the employer has left and is no longer available. In practice he is afforded the opportunity of pointing out his employer. In that case action is not then taken against him in terms of section 3, but steps are taken against the employer in terms of other legislation for having employed him illegally. This amendment Bill and this provision is necessary to protect law-abiding Black citizens against vagrants. In most cases it is precisely this type of person who is the inciter, the agitator, the person who causes unrest in the urban areas and who embitters the life of the peaceful and law-abiding citizen and who makes his position impossible. Every sensible person must concede this at once.

Let us go further. The hon. member for Mooi River raised as an argument, and said that his party’s objection to the Bill was, that the discretion of the Bantu Affairs Commissioner to suspend a first order no longer existed. Now he no longer has any discretion. Now it no longer counts. I maintain that the opposite is true. The Bantu Affairs Commissioner is now obtaining a discretion for the first time. He did not have it before. To date it was the practice and he had to suspend the order after the first offence, regardless of the circumstances. A person could have been a real loafer, a layabout, a troublemaker, a problem for two or three years, and only now have they caught him. But because it was a first offence, the Bantu Affairs Commissioner had to suspend it. That is not a discretion. Now he is being given a very clear discretion. If a sound reason exists therefor, any Bantu Affairs Commissioner “may” … In other words, he, who is skilled in these matters, is now being given a real discretion. That is also the reply to the question put by the hon. member for Pinelands in this regard.

I now want to return to the argument of the hon. member for Musgrave, viz. the question of how the identity documents of Transkeians and Bophuthatswanan citizens will differ from the particulars in the reference book at present It has been agreed with both these Governments, and it was requested by them, that for two years after independence the citizens of Transkei and Bophuthatswana will still be able to make use of our documents, because it was physically impossible for them to succeed in issuing documents so soon. However, during these two years they must make use of the time to issue their own documents, and we have agreed that we shall accept their documents, in whatever form they may take, as soon as they have issued their own documents. And as some of their people begin to carry their own documents, we will of course recognize those documents. I recall that when I was still Minister of the Interior we assisted them in an advisory capacity by making suggestions to them as to what form such a document could take in order to be useful for their purposes. That assistance was given, and their documents will therefore be accepted.

The hon. member for Orange Grove put a few questions and was also a little acrimonious about certain matters. I am not going to pay any heed to it. He asked why section 16 is being repealed. My reply is precisely the same as the reply contained in the explanatory memorandum, viz. that we believe that previously the Black person still had to be protected, but that under the present circumstances, and in the present state of development of the Bantu, it is no longer necessary because it imposes a tremendous burden on our officials. It is no longer necessary because the Black man is at present in a position to defend himself and to handle his case himself. Therefore we removed it because we recognize his development and wish to accord recognition to it by deleting this clause which made of him a subordinate which he no longer is.

Another question which he put was whether clause 18 was intended to force independence on the homelands. The cumbersome attempts to get certain things piloted through, to get them dealt with and submitted, are in this way being facilitated at the request of these people. I want to give the unequivocal assurance that this is no attempt to force homelands to become independent. This cannot succeed with unwilling people. To force a man to become independent will have no effect whatsoever. Who will allow himself to be forced into independence? After all, he still has to pilot a law through his own Parliament in order to accept it. How can I force him to do so if he refuses? I think it is far-fetched. The independence of a territory requires more than merely the addition of matters of legislative authority. These amendments have no bearing on that. It requires an act of Parliament.

There are numerous other cases which I could deal with, but I am not going to speak any longer. I think I have covered the general issues. We can discuss the detail during the Committee Stage. I want to conclude with a final appeal, and I want to do this in the spirit in which I made my first speech. Seen from my point of view, I am, as far as disposition is concerned, going to try to get the support of the Black people. I may be idealistic, but I am going to do my utmost to get this support, in the urban areas and in the homeland areas. I believe in dialogue; I believe in discussion, I believe in consultation, as far as it is practical and physically possible. Mr. Speaker, hon. members must please not now interpret this to mean that I have thrown in the towel and that matters may simply take their course, that nothing further can be done about it. That is not what it means. Matters must still proceed in an orderly manner. This is also, and pre-eminently, in the interests of the Black man in the urban residential areas. After all, areas must still be efficiently administered in the interests of everyone— and particularly in the interests of the Black man. That is why the rectification of specific provisions, as is also being done in the case of the Bill under discussion, is necessary, and that is why it is my privilege, despite all the complaints which were raised, to move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. I believe that this legislation is necessary for the implementation of precisely what I envisage.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The Bantu Homelands Citizenship Amendment Bill, 1970 (Act No. 26 of 1970), creates citizenship of territorial authority areas (homelands) and provides that every Bantu person in the Republic who is not a prohibited immigrant is a citizen of one of the homelands. Bantu originally acquired citizenship of a specific homeland on the basis of their place of birth or language or cultural links and can also acquire citizenship on the basis of domicile, and in this way a citizen of one homeland may acquire citizenship of another homeland and simultaneously ceased to be a citizen of his former homeland.

When an independent Transkei came into being, the circumstances changed, since the former citizens of the Republic who acquired citizenship of the independent Transkei or Bophuthatswana could no longer become citizens of a homeland within the Republic, due to the fact that they were not citizens of the Republic.

The Government recognizes the fact that there are circumstances in which it ought to be permitted that a citizen of a former homeland may in fact acquire citizenship of a homeland in the Republic. An example of such a state of affairs would be the establishment of a marital bond between a South African Black citizen and a citizen of a homeland which had become independent. However, it must be clearly understood that no person can or ought to acquire citizenship on the basis of domicile if he is not acceptable as a citizen to the country of which he wishes to become a citizen, and that is the reason for the provision that the recommendation of the homeland authority concerned is also necessary.

This Bill is motivated by humanitarian considerations due to an understanding of personal problems of people who could find themselves in difficult situations due to independence of the homelands.

I believe that this measure will meet with general acceptance and that it deserves general support.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the introductory comments by the hon. the Minister, comments which have once again been very brief. We on this side of the House find this a quaint piece of legislation which is really the product of the rather tortuous thinking which is so often behind much of the government’s separate development policies. This is a tortuous piece of reasoning which states that if the ideal or philosophy comes into conflict with the realities or facts of the situation, one should contort or twist the realities but can never reconsider the ideal. In this instance the Government’s ideal is that when a homeland takes independence, all members of that homeland, whether they live within the homeland or outside it, whether they have asked for independence or not or whether they have accepted it or not, must assume citizenship of the newly independent homeland and loose their South African citizenship. That, from the Government’s point of view, is the ideal. It fits in with their philosophy of separate development and, of course, from the Government’s point of view this would be a very tidy arrangement indeed. In theory this means that with one stroke of the pen the Government can rid itself of the direct responsibility for whole ethnic groups, including members of those groups who remain, in their hundreds of thousands, within the territorial area of the Republic. In practice, however, as we have seen, it is not quite as easy as that. The fact is that whatever the attitude of some of the people within the homeland is towards independence, there are hundreds of thousands of urbanized Blacks who regard themselves as citizens of South Africa and who do not want to surrender their rights of citizenship over the whole of the country of their birth in exchange for the citizenship of part of the country of their birth. We know that this is a fact which emerged very clearly with the independence of Transkei, and it is a fact which has again been very evident indeed in regard to the independence afforded Bophuthatswana. We know that Chief Mangope made it very clear indeed that he was under very considerable pressure from his own people on this issue, as well he must have been. What the Government is doing in this instance, in the name of separate development, is to take the very drastic step of depriving hundreds of thousands of people of their citizenship rights in the land of their birth. In other words, what the Government is doing is to take away the birthright of South Africans whilst giving them something very much less in exchange.

In this Bill?

This is the ideal behind what the Government is doing.

Speak on this Bill.

I am coming to the Bill. I am at present discussing the general principle, the ideal which gives rise to a Bill of this nature. What is at issue here is the fact that the Government finds itself in difficulties trying to reconcile the grand plan or ideal of separate development with having to look at the rights of ordinary individuals who find themselves at a disadvantage in regard to this matter. This is the reality of the situation, and it is this reality which has now come into conflict with the ideal of separate development. That is why we have this Bill before us. The Government finds itself in a dilemma. Under pressure from Chief Mangope and other people and perhaps even under pressure from their own processes of logic, the Government have had to try to reconcile their own drawing-board plans for separate independent homelands with the fact that ordinary human beings involved in these plans are reluctant to abandon their existing rights for what is being offered to them. I find it a paradox that the Government and members of the Government, who are for ever lecturing others on “patriotisme”, “vaderlandsliefde”, mother-love—call it what you like—and issues of that kind as if they had the absolute monopoly on them, can overlook the fact that it is a direct assault on the patriotism and the mother-love of others to be forced into a situation where they lose their rights of citizenship in the land of their birth. Yet this is precisely the situation that has been created in terms of the homelands policy of the Government. It is a situation that is totally unrealistic and totally unreasonable, and I believe the Government very often know this to be so. However, if the Government lacks realism and reasonableness, they certainly do not lack ingenuity. This Bill is a very good illustration of that point. They rather remind me of the three ugly sisters in the fable of Cinderella.

Only two ugly sisters.

Just as the three ugly sisters were determined to twist and contort their feet in order to fit the glass slipper, so the Government is determined to twist and contort the realities of the situation in order to fit the philosophy of separate development.

Let us look at the terms of the Bill. What does it do? In the first place, the original provision that the citizen of the homeland automatically loses his South African citizenship when that homeland becomes independent remains totally unchanged. Secondly, if after the homeland has become independent, such a citizen who used to be a South African citizen, no longer wishes to be a citizen of the independent State, he can apply to become a citizen of a non-independent homeland and, if he is accepted as a citizen of a non-independent homeland and, if he is accepted as a citizen of such a homeland, he may be granted South African citizenship by birth. In other words, such a person can only regain his citizenship by birth via the citizenship of a non-independent homeland.

Let us also look at some of the other implications of this legislation. The person who I am using in my example must have been a South African citizen and, in addition, he must have been a citizen of a territorial authority before, in terms of this legislation, he can apply for citizenship of a non-independent homeland. Quite clearly, the privilege, if one can call it a privilege, which is being given in this legislation, is only available to a person who was a South African citizen at the time of independence, and is not available to anyone born after independence. That is the limit of the privilege this Bill purports and seeks to give. The person born after independence is denied that privilege on two main grounds, as it seems from this Bill. For example, in terms of paragraph (b) of Schedule B of the Status of Bophuthatswana Act of 1977—

… is a citizen of Bophuthatswana. Since the parents of the person I am dealing with automatically lost their South African citizenship, such a child was never at any stage a South African citizen and does not therefore qualify for the kind of privilege extended by this Bill. The second ground upon which a person born after independence is denied that privilege is that the Bill states that such a person must have been a South African citizen and the citizen of a territorial authority area. Quite clearly, since the person we are dealing with will have been born after independence, the possibility of dual citizenship does not exist in his case. What is more, at this time an independent State like Bophuthatswana can no longer be regarded as and is in fact no longer a territorial authority. Therefore that person is automatically disqualified. This means that the net effect of this provision is that only the present generation of people, i.e. those born before independence, can avail themselves of this very limited privilege. Let us also look at the conditions and the prerequisites that must be present before even such a person can regain his South African citizenship.

Firstly, he has to apply in the prescribed manner in terms of the legislation for citizenship of another territorial authority. He has to make that application. The second step is that the other territorial authority must recommend the granting of citizenship to that person. Thirdly, the Minister may—it is quite permissive—in his discretion grant citizenship of such territorial authority area to such person. Therefore there is no assurance that such a person will go through these various stages successfully and will comply with these various criteria which are laid down in the Bill which is before us. Only if all these factors are present will that person be able to regain his lost South African citizenship.

Mr. Speaker, it is really a very minimal benefit which is being conferred in terms of this legislation. It pays very limited and very token lip service to the right of people to opt to retain or to regain their lost birthright. If one looks at the situation objectively it gives the person concerned a citizenship of very diminishing returns which incidentally cuts right across ethnic considerations. It is noteworthy that this Government, which is so often preoccupied and obsessed with ethnic considerations, comes before the House in this instance and allows a situation where a citizen of an independent homeland can, by satisfying various criteria, achieve citizenship of a homeland designed for another ethnic group. This is an interesting observation. None the less, it does mean for example that if a citizen of the Transkei, having lost his South African citizenship, wants to regain his South African citizenship he could, for example, apply to the Ciskei to be accepted as a citizen of that homeland. If he is so accepted he will regain his South African citizenship. However, the situation can be taken further. If the Ciskei were subsequently to achieve independence, that same individual, if he wanted to retain his South African citizenship, would be compelled to apply to yet another homeland to obtain citizenship. One will accordingly have a ridiculous situation where people will be moving about from one ethnic group to another, almost in chameleon-like fashion, in order to retain citizenship of South Africa as a whole.

All in all, if one looks at this legislation, it falls very far short of meeting what should be the right of people born in South Africa to retain their South African citizenship if they so desire. We believe that while the Bill purports to give some rights, it is really a measure which defies the facts of the situation in regard to the people for whom it is designed. We believe that all it does is to present a strange and almost invisible chink in the door of the Government to allow citizens of areas which have taken independence to apply for certain rights for the time being. The time, of course, is going to be limited if the Government is sincere in its intentions of proceeding with the creation of further independent homelands. I think it was the hon. the Prime Minister who suggested in the censure debate the other day that within five years most or all of the homelands will have achieved independence. One may therefore have a situation where a person may have moved from one homeland to another in order to retain his South African citizenship, but where he is going to lose it in any case ultimately in terms of declared Government policy.

We therefore believe that this measure provides for a very tenuous form of citizenship in the land of a person’s birth. We believe that it falls very short indeed of keeping faith with hundreds of thousands of South Africans who have been arbitrarily deprived of their birthright, viz. of the citizenship of South Africa as a whole. For that reason I want to move the following amendment—

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Musgrave called the legislation quaint, but I find it far quainter that the prepared speech of the hon. member for Musgrave concerning the legislation and his motivation for his opposition to the legislation took no account whatsoever of the motivation for the legislation advanced by the hon. the Minister. I deduce that the hon. member for Musgrave discussed Bantu affairs in the House 17 years ago and is now acting in prehistoric fashion by not taking cognizance of the constitutional development to date, by not taking cognizance of the thinking of the NP—which is indeed dominant—and by not taking cognizance of the motivation for the legislation before the House. The hon. member spoke for 20 minutes without once referring to the motivation for the Bill advanced by the hon. the Minister, which in fact indicated that this is a logical and consequential piece of legislation. That is absolutely the weakest and most ignorant form of debate there is. Whereas the hon. member allowed himself the luxury of going beyond the basis of the legislation, we too must undertake a broader investigation in order to determine what motivated the hon. member to adopt the standpoints he did. We shall come to that in a moment.

I have said that this is a logical piece of legislation. Why do I say so? The proposed subsection (3) refers to the acquisition of citizenship of a territorial authority area in the Republic by a person who has been lawfully resident in another area for at least five years. In other words, what we have here is an exchange of citizenship on the basis of domicile. It has occurred that one of the self governing territories, whether Bophuthatswana or Transkei, has become independent. We can maintain that it is characteristic of the Government that it acts logically and that it makes logical adjustments. Among the adjustments foreseen for the exchange of citizenship from one territorial authority area to another, human affairs, such as marriages and the transferring of ethnic links, were borne in mind. Authorities on Bantu customs are well aware of this. Because we bore these factors in mind this is a logical piece of legislation and if the hon. member for Musgrave listens, he could perhaps learn something from the new thinking of the NP which brings logical and consequential legislation to the House. This is therefore a simple and logical piece of legislation. Listening to the hon. the Minister, one would have found that he referred to marriage as an example of a circumstance which could entail the transfer of citizenship from an independent country to a homeland within the Republic. This is therefore an entirely logical piece of legislation even though the hon. member for Musgrave tried to make a lot more out of it. The hon. member for Musgrave saw fit to cover a far wider field. He discussed the whole issue of citizenship in general, the rights entailed by citizenship and the rights entailed by nationality in the debate. The hon. member quoted the philosophy of the NP and in my opinion I am entitled to reply to that and to ask, in my turn: What is the philosophy of that party which is opposing this so strongly?

Order! I do not want to thwart the hon. member, but I just want to point out to him that I shall keep a close eye on the debate throughout, because in my opinion what is at issue here is the regaining of citizenship, and all hon. members will have to confine themselves to the broad concept. The amendment implies that the Bill does not go far enough and wants it to go further. But I cannot allow discussion of citizenship of other homelands and other countries as such and of the underlying philosophies recognized on either side of the House.

Mr. Speaker, do I understand you to say that I may then only reply to the general motivation for the standpoint of the hon. member for Musgrave?

I shall allow the hon. member to react to that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The attack of the hon. member for Musgrave is directed at our philosophy of the recognition of nationalism, which ultimately gives rise to the possibility that citizenship of the territory of a specific people may be acquired. That is this party’s philosophy. That party denies this nationalism. Under pressure of certain factors they take it that it does not exist.

What are those factors?

In contrast to the NP, which has recognized nationalism as a norm, the PFP has no norm. To those who have to take cognizance of the development of the politics of the Black people outside the House, three choices are open today. Firstly, they can recognize their nationalism, which eventually leads to citizenship of the country of a people. The second choice open to them is to recognize the militant thinking of the people, thinking based on the communist ideas which see South Africa as a unitary state and which foresee for South Africa a political dispensation removed from capitalism and equivalent to technical socialism, eventually communism. The third choice is the so-called Black power idea which is favoured by a third stream active outside Parliament. The hon. members of the PFP have a choice among these three streams when they deal with Black politics in the House. The NP has made its final choice. We shall recognize and support the development of Black nationalism and a separate citizenship for a specific territory or a country. Those hon. members, however, do not accept this. They reject it, and that is why there are only two alternatives left to them. Both of these choices lie outside the politics of this House and link them with politics which are in conflict with order and peace in this country. The point I want to raise is the following. Through their opposition to the choice made by Mr. Matanzima and Mr. Mangope, the PFP are directly supporting the development of the other political trends outside this House which aim at South Africa’s downfall. It is as simple as that.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to anticipate what the hon. the Minister or one of his hon. colleagues is likely to say in connection with the hon. member for Musgrave’s reference to the three ugly sisters of Cinderella. In fact, there were only two, and I have no doubt whatsoever that the hon. gentleman opposite is going to add me as No. 3!

I shall never do that to you, Helen.

Well, I have a feeling the hon. the Minister was thinking of it and I just wanted to forestall him in that respect.

The hon. member for Bloemfontein West has castigated the hon. member for Musgrave for his speech, for his debating style and for the fact that he came with a prepared argument. I think it is a pity that the hon. member for Bloemfontein West did not come with a prepared argument. He considered the argument of the hon. member for Musgrave as being irrelevant, although I must say that in much the same way I was not impressed with the relevance of his speech as far as this Bill is concerned. It has nothing to do with Black Power, patriotism or any of these fine-sounding words people like to use in debates like this. It has to do with the regaining of citizenship only. That is absolutely certain. It is a simple, little one-clause Bill. I do not see that it has any relevance to section 3(2) of the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, which the hon. member for Bloemfontein West says it refers to. He said it was the logical outflow of that legislation.

You must go and do your homework.

I have done my homework. It is the hon. member who has not done his homework. What on earth has this Bill got to do with anybody “who has been lawfully domiciled for a period of at least five years in any other area—irrespective of whether or not such period includes any period prior to the commencement of this section, may on application in the prescribed manner be granted citizenship of the last mentioned territorial authority area by the territorial authority of the last mentioned area,” as laid down in section 3(2) of the Act? The hon. member must work that one out It has nothing whatsoever to do with it That is simply the ordinary right whereby a territorial authority shall allow people to become citizens after being domiciled. It has nothing to do with the regaining of South African citizenship. If the hon. member’s argument was correct, the whole process would stop after the person had become a citizen of a territorial authority area in which he was domiciled. Nothing further would happen. However, this Bill allows that process to go one step further.

It is logical to provide for a new situation.

It allows them to go one step further in regaining South African citizenship. This is certainly the outcome of previous legislation and previous discussions with homeland leaders. I am absolutely sure of that My hon. friend for Musgrave is quite right about that. Any of us who were in this House when the independence of Bophuthatswana was under discussion, will remember very clearly the letter which Chief Mangope had handed to the then Minister of Bantu Administration and Development, Mr. M. C. Botha. This letter was quoted by the hon. member for Pinelands and other hon. members on these benches. This letter stated quite unequivocally that the Chief Minister of Bophuthatswana was determined that he would not accept independence unless something was done to allow the citizens resident in tile Republic of South Africa who had ethnic, language, or other ties with Bophuthatswana and who were going to lose their South African citizenship the minute Bophuthatswana was declared independent, to regain such citizenship. I think people have forgotten that. I am going to quote a paragraph from this letter so that hon. members will remember what was said. The letter from Chief Mangope was dated 23 May 1977. It reads as follows—

That is the operative word—

That is what this little Bill is all about, because there must have been further negotiations then saying: “Just let the independence go through. We shall have other negotiations and we shall come with some mechanism whereby Bophuthatswana residents who lose their citizenship by virtue of the Declaration of Independence, automatically can regain their South African citizenship.” Mr. Speaker, you will remember that the Bophuthatswana Bill made vague references to this. It stated in clause 6(3) that a citizen of Bophuthatswana may renounce his Bophuthatswana citizenship on independence, on conditions agreed upon between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the Government of Bophuthatswana, and in a manner prescribed by the Government of Bophuthatswana. I now ask the hon. the Minister whether this was the manner which they agreed upon. In this little Bill which we are considering today, is clause 1, which amends section 3 of the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act, the result of the negotiations between the Bophuthatswana Government and the South African Government on implementing section 6(3) of the status of Bophuthatswana Act? That is the important issue.

This is not the Bill leading from that That Bill will be piloted through this House by my colleague, the hon. the Minister of the Interior.

Oh! So there is yet another Bill to come. So the argument of the Chief Minister did not in any way motivate this Bill?

Not necessarily this Bill; the other one.

We shall wait anxiously for that Bill because this Bill is a nonsense Bill, if I may say so, although it may have been motivated by humanitarian reasons, something to do with marriage, something to do with the homelands reaching certain stages of development, or whatever the motivation was. I must say I did not follow the hon. the Minister’s argument very clearly. There was no explanatory memorandum which, of course, always explains nothing at all. However, this is a nonsense Bill, especially when one thinks of the steps that have to be taken by people who have lost their citizenship—I might say, without any consultation with those people, because the people in the urban areas were not consulted as to whether or not they wanted the homelands to become independent, and in fact they are strongly against it, as we know and as we have seen from recent elections in the townships …

Order! The hon. member may not go into that now.

Yes, Sir, I shall come right back to the regaining of citizenship. What are the methods whereby persons may regain citizenship? They may regain citizenship, as my hon. friend has pointed out, by first applying in the prescribed manner to the territorial authority that they select I do not know whether it is done by assembling the remaining non-independent territorial authorities, closing one’s eyes, and then dotting with a pin and deciding which is the one which is going to be selected.

Nonsense!

Well, you do not have to live for five years in the area. You just have to apply, as far as I can see. So you go to the Venda, for example, you apply in the prescribed manner and maybe the Venda accept you. I wonder how many people are going to be accepted in this way, because citizenship takes on responsibilities. It carries with it responsibilities. You have to care for that person’s education and the education perhaps of his children. Once he is a citizen he can come and live there. These impoverished reserves, homelands, territorial authorities, whatever you want to call them, now take on the responsibility of X number of additional citizens when they can barely look after their own citizens as it is. They will take on pensions, education, social welfare and all the other responsibilities that go with citizenship. And, of course, there is the franchise. You have to let them vote as well. It therefore seems to me highly unlikely that any number of citizens are going to be accommodated under new citizenship regulations as laid down by this Bill. It just does not seem possible. Already most of the homelands, as the hon. the Minister knows perfectly well, have at least half, and in some cases three quarters—like little Qwaqwa—of their citizens living outside the area, because they cannot afford to keep them there. There are no job opportunities, so how on earth are they going to take on the responsibility of new citizens? Supposing such applicants for citizenship get a Venda territorial authority to accept them, they then have to come to the Minister and the Minister has to give the citizenship applications his approval. Such persons then become citizens of Venda and regain the citizenship of South Africa. That is the way it is going to work. This is simply farcical; it is nonsense. It is, as the hon. member for Musgrave has said, the law of diminishing returns. Venda will become independent and then one will have to go shopping around again for another territorial authority that is not independent and ask it, the territorial authority, whether it will accept you as a citizen. Then, one goes from Venda to Gazankulu and Gazankulu says: “Okay, I will take you who were a South African citizen who became a Bophuthatswana citizen, who became a Venda citizen, who regained your South African citizenship. I will take you as a Gazankulu citizen so that you may now again regain your South African citizenship.” [Interjections.] Then, Gazankulu becomes independent and off one has to go again and the next one is perhaps Lebowa.

KwaZulu.

No, that is the last one, the very last one. According to the hon. the Prime Minister, KwaZulu is the last one. One then has to go trotting off to Lebowa. After Lebowa one has to go to the Ciskei or anywhere else, and then to poor little Qwa Qwa with most of its citizens living outside of its area anyway. To my mind it is ludicrous, and much though we would like to see a method or some mechanism by which South African Africans who have lost their citizenship of South Africa due to their homelands becoming independent—against their will, of course—could regain their citizenship, this is not a method that we can possibly support. It is farcical and we are unable therefore to give any plausibility to a Bill of this nature. We are also unable to give it respectability by supporting it. Therefore, the hon. member for Musgrave has moved his amendment and I have no alternative but to support that amendment.

Mr. Speaker, just like the hon. member for Musgrave, the hon. member for Houghton also tried to build up her own case, only to destroy it herself at a later stage. It was very clear that those hon. members did not fully understand the principle of this Bill. That was why they went into such great detail and why they tried to concentrate on the general principle of citizenship, something which is not at issue here. That aspect was fully discussed when the principal Act was passed.

I can assure the hon. member for Houghton that the question of citizenship has of course been discussed with the leaders of the homelands on numerous occasions. Nobody denies that. Indeed, the hon. the Minister’s predecessor repeatedly stated that he had on innumerable occasions met the leaders of the homelands around the conference table to discuss the question of citizenship. Consequently I fail to see why the hon. member for Houghton has again quoted that letter which is dated as far back as May 1977. Since the date of that letter, there have been several discussions at which the matter raised in that letter has been cleared up. The hon. member has quoted from a letter which has become outdated and the subject of which is no longer of any concern.

What is more, she belongs to a party which has become outdated!

The hon. member says this legislation may perhaps deal with “humanitarian reasons.” Of course, it deals with human rights. Hon. members are so obsessed with this concept of human rights that they talk about it from morning to night. However, whenever we try to do something about human rights, they hold it against us.

It is only because we want to be fair and humane to the people concerned that this Bill is before the House today. When Transkei and Bophuthatswana became independent and when the principal Act was passed, it was stated repeatedly that that was not the end of the story, that these matters would be discussed again and that certain matters would come up again which would have to be rectified. However, it is impossible to do everything at once. Section 3 of the principal Act deals specifically with citizenship. When Transkei and Bophuthatswana became independent the people of those territories became citizens of independent States. That matter was repeatedly discussed prior to independence until agreement was eventually reached on the question of the independence of those citizens.

Sir, I want to explain this Bill before the House by means of a very good example. I have a Bantu servant in my employ. He has been in my employ now for 16 years. He is a Tswana and a citizen of Bophuthatswana. He is married, and his wife is a member of the Lebowa tribe. She is a North Sotho. They have a number of children and those children are being reared in the traditions of the wife. They also attend a school which is run according to Lebowa traditions. If that Black employee of mine wishes to apply for citizenship of Lebowa, he should have the opportunity to do so. Today he does not have that opportunity. For the sake of his children and his descendants he now wishes to become a citizen of Lebowa. How can he become one? In terms of the legislation before the House he is now afforded that opportunity.

I think it is only right that he should be given that opportunity. However, this Government does not want to force Lebowa to grant that Black employee of mine citizenship. It is at the discretion of Lebowa to do so. It is not for the hon. the Minister or the Government to tell Lebowa to grant him that citizenship. It is for Lebowa to decide whether or not they want to accept that citizen. It is the inherent right of the Lebowa Government to decide on the matter. Should they recommend it the hon. the Minister can say: “Very well, in that case he can be granted citizenship of the Republic.” That happens automatically because Lebowa is not independent. It follows, therefore, that that person must be granted citizenship of the Republic. Should Lebowa become independent one day, however, that person will be granted Lebowa citizenship only; he will lose his Republican citizenship. Surely that is abundantly clear from this section because, for obvious reasons, nobody can be a citizen of two independent States. However, Sir, should Lebowa refuse to confer citizenship on that person, the position remains unaltered. Nothing will have happened. In that case that person remains a citizen of Bophuthatswana.

There are many advantages attached to the fact that these people can choose which citizenship they prefer. Some of these advantages are the franchise, home language, traditions etc. In the case of the person who works for me, he has an additional advantage in that he can apply for the same citizenship as that of his wife. Such a person will never become a stateless person. He either retains his citizenship of the country of which he is already a citizen or he acquires the citizenship of another country. The hon. the Minister must however have the right to decide on the question of citizenship after the homeland has said “yes” because our country, for example, affords that person protection under international law. Furthermore, we also have the right to decide on whether we will say “yes” or “no” once the homeland has decided that it will say “yes”. Surely that is also very clear.

This Bill is completely to the advantage of the citizens of the independent States. I do not see how it can but be to their advantage and facilitate matters for them. It makes the citizen who applies for citizenship of another homeland aware of becoming a part of that nation to which he wishes to belong. He is not forced to become part of a nation with which he may feel he has nothing in common. The argument advanced by the hon. member for Musgrave, namely, that a person can go from one State to another in order to retain his citizenship of the Republic, is farfetched.

It is ludicrous!

What on earth makes him think that? Surely this Government has the right to decide. Should anybody misuse the opportunity afforded him in terms of this Bill, the Minister will say to him: “Look here, surely you have already made a choice. You cannot go down the line until you have become a citizen of all eight homelands. I therefore say ‘no’.” It is very obvious that a safety valve has been built in here, a safety valve which will counter the argument advanced by the hon. member for Musgrave.

Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to argue the issue of the removal of citizenship. The view of our party is clear. We are opposed, and have previously been strongly opposed, to the compulsory removal of the right to South African citizenship from any South African citizen. That point has, however, been argued. The Statute Book provides the procedure by which, without choice, South African citizens can compulsorily lose their right to be South African citizens. We would therefore naturally welcome any measure that enables those, who wish to regain South African citizenship, to do so. That is the ostensible object of this measure. One need only look, however, at the problems that have arisen over the citizenship issue. I am not going to quote examples, but it has led to friction, in fact almost head-on confrontation, between South Africa and Transkei. It has led to friction and unpleasantness between Bophuthatswana and its Chief Minister, Chief Mangope, and South Africa as the result of which he has said some harsh things about South Africa. It has also led to friction and unpleasantness in a dozen different spheres. Those difficulties and that unpleasantness, however, have not sprung from the odd individual cases which the hon. the Minister quoted. I am referring to the question of a man who marries a woman from a different ethnic group, the two subsequently wishing to have similar citizenship. Those are the exceptions. It is not for that handful of people that persons like Chief Mangope have spoken so strongly on the issue of citizenship.

The people who are concerned about it are the hundreds of thousands, in fact the millions, who live in the urban townships, the urban White areas of South Africa. They are the people who seek South African citizenship, not the odd Shona who has married a Venda or the Zulu who has married a Xhosa or vice versa. It is not they who are the cause of the pressure or the friction. We shall therefore obviously support the amendment which criticizes this measure in that it does not provide for an automatic right of resumption of South African citizenship. I do not, however, want to stop there. I do not want to get onto this merry-go-round argument which I frankly do not think is a realistic argument.

I want to try to put a positive suggestion to the hon. the Minister. It would not even need a law to accomplish what I am proposing. This could be done with the stroke of a pen. If the hon. the Minister were, for instance, to establish a territorial authority for Soweto, in terms of the Bill before us the inhabitants of the territorial authority of Soweto would be able to obtain citizenship of Soweto, and with it South African citizenship.

Why only Soweto?

I am taking that as an example. There could be others. There could be a similar territorial authority created in the western Cape. There could also be one created in other centres. Strictly within the framework of Government policy, applying its own concept and philosophy, machinery could be provided to which this Bill could apply, and this can be done simply by creating a territorial authority without ethnic identity but with territorial identity. The whole problem of this friction would then be solved, because in terms of the Bill the perhaps quarter of a million people who are citizens of Transkei and Bophuthatswana and who are striving to regain South African citizenship could become citizens of the new territorial authority. So, within the framework of Government policy, simply by removing the ethnic content from an urban homeland, one could have an urban territorial authority and solve the whole problem of citizenship. I want to know what would be wrong with that.

What political rights would they have?

Order! The hon. member is now bringing a totally new concept into the debate. He is now outside the scope of this debate. He must return to the Bill.

I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker. I agree that it is a totally new concept. I hope it is a new concept which may make a contribution to the solution of this problem. I am putting this matter forward as a positive solution to the problem the hon. the Minister is trying to solve where, in terms of this measure, he will have to deal individually with the case of, say, Miss Manyembe and Mr. Msomo who have married and with every other similar case. He will have to decide whether, on the recommendations of another territorial authority, such people may be granted the citizenship they desire. The volume of work involved could be tremendous. I am suggesting a way in which this Bill could be applied to an entirely new ball game, an entirely new setup. However, Sir, I bow to your ruling and I shall not take the details of my suggestion any further.

I should like to deal finally with the aspect of the application which must be made. In terms of the 1974 amending legislation any South African Bantu could obtain the citizenship of another territorial authority at the decision of the territorial authority concerned. It was the territorial authority that decided. Therefore, if a Sotho wanted to become a Zulu, the Zulu authority decided on the issue. This Bill departs from that procedure and gives the right of decision to the hon. the Minister. Why does he remove that discretion from the territorial authority in which it vested in terms of the 1974 amendment and arrogate it to himself? There have been another four years of development since 1974.

The territorial authorities have developed greater experience and yet now, in conflict with all the smooth words of praise and faith in the operation of the authorities, the Minister in terms of this Bill takes away their right to determine whom they will accept as citizens. This is in fundamental conflict with the philosophy of the NRP of choice at community level in all affairs. In terms of this Bill the hon. the Minister is removing the choice of a community to determine with whom it will live and whom it will accept as one of its own. We believe the best people to decide whom they want as members of their community are the community itself. We object very strongly to this removal of rights and the removal of a power from a territorial authority and therefore we shall in the Committee Stage move the deletion of the transfer of the right of decision to the Minister.

Having advanced, I believe, a positive and constructive new direction of thought, I want to say that we shall support the amendment opposing the Bill because we believe it is wrong to remove citizenship without giving adequate optional opportunities to people to regain the citizenship to which they were born, under which they have grown up and to which they give their loyalty.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased the Bill has been discussed in this spirit. This Bill embodies a principle and we can therefore have a thorough discussion during the Second Reading debate. When the hon. member for Musgrave put his standpoint, he showed that he had still not learned the lesson I tried to teach him during the Second Reading stage of the previous Bill. That also applies to the hon. member for Houghton. Once again they have taken the most extreme cases and used them as examples. Why must the hon. member always stress only the negative aspects? I ask for a change of heart from the Opposition in the interests of South Africa. [Interjections.] Allow me to explain. Here again—and I repeat my standpoint—it is the human aspect which is the crux of the matter. But of this I heard not one word. One would, after all, expect to hear something about the human aspect from hon. members who are continually stressing human rights and humanitarian rights. But their words speak louder than their actions. Take this Bill as an illustration. It has been introduced specifically to rectify those heartbreak cases in regard to which they continually reproach us. For instance, if a Xhosa man is married to a Sotho woman who is a citizen of Qwaqwa, it might well be that they elect jointly to adopt Qwaqwa citizenship because the man has no desire to retain his Xhosa citizenship. In such a case they can, in terms of this legislation, apply to the Government of Qwaqwa to obtain citizenship of that territory. If it is recommended, the Minister can give both of them citizenship of Qwaqwa and South African citizenship automatically as well. This is a humane gesture to help them, and this legislation makes that possible. Why do hon. members not praise the legislation for those humane aspects if they really have human rights at heart?

I want to mention yet another example. A Lebowa couple may adopt a child who by birth is a citizen of Transkei or Bophuthatswana. He is therefore an adopted child who might wish to adopt the citizenship of his parents. This legislation enables such a child to obtain that citizenship. These are the humane aspects covered by this legislation. Those hon. members urge me continually to show more humanitarianism. But if I do show humanitarianism, as is the case with this legislation, they refer only to negative aspects and ridicule the legislation. We need a change of heart on the part of the Opposition if we are to see South Africa forge ahead, a change of heart not on the part of the Government but on the part of the Opposition. The hon. member so exaggerated everything in his arguments that he gave Cinderella three ugly sisters. There too he exaggerated. He always talks in superlatives. The hon. member for Houghton says it is a “nonsense Bill”. But what are the facts of the matter? Let us have a look at the facts as they will appear in practice. Mr. Speaker, I should also like to refer to the hon. member for Durban Point before I give my positive reply. The standpoint of that hon. member, which you, Sir, so rightly ruled out of order, dealt with the creation of city status which the Democratic Party of Mr. Gerdener envisaged. That hon. member is trying to drag Mr. Gerdener’s prescriptions for city status in by the back door.

That is NRP standpoint.

Yes, but it is the standpoint of Theo Gerdener which that hon. member took over. [Interjections.] But I do not want to talk about that. I know it will be out of order because you, Mr. Speaker, have ruled that hon. member out of order. But that hon. member takes no account of the thousands of people in Soweto. These are people who have not been consulted and of whom many probably prefer citizenship of a homeland. These are the people to whom this hon. member wants to give automatic citizenship of Soweto. [Interjections.] I should like to deal with this aspect. The question the hon. member put to me is this: Why is the Minister now assuming the powers in regard to citizenship which were in the hands of the Bantu authorities in 1974? This has come about because the constitutional situation has altered radically since 1974. If a Xhosa had applied for citizenship of KwaZulu in 1974, it would have meant a shift of one segment of the people of South Africa to another segment. It would not have been a movement outside South African citizenship but would have taken place within the confines of South African citizenship. After the independence of Transkei and Bophuthatswana, we had to deal with a new constitutional element, viz. an independent sovereign State with its own citizenship which is now exchanging that citizenship for a segment of South African citizenship and automatically obtains South African citizenship. That is the situation which has come about and I cannot therefore leave it to the Bantu authorities to decide among themselves, because the South African Government also has an interest in the matter now. A Minister of the Government must therefore also have a say in this matter. I hope this is clear to the hon. member now.

The Bill deals basically with the attainment of citizenship of a homeland which is still not independent. The Bill automatically includes eventual South African citizenship, but in the first place it relates to the attainment of citizenship of a homeland not yet independent. What are the conditions attaching to this? The conditions are very clear, i.e. he or she must have been a South African citizen previously, and in my view this is an excellent and a very necessary provision. To motivate it, I use the same argument which I used in connection with the previous piece of legislation; that is, we do not have and we do not want control or a say over Transkei or Bophuthatswana in regard to the people to whom they may grant citizenship of their countries in future. It is their right to confer citizenship on whomsoever they choose. They are independent States and we acknowledge them as such. But we are not prepared to accept people who have obtained citizenship of Bophuthatswana or Transkei, automatically as citizens of South Africa …

What if they lost it automatically?

I am not prepared to allow those people in through the back door. Any person of any colour in any part of any world is free at any time to apply for South African citizenship. The applications are considered by the Department of the Interior, of which I was previously the Minister. Anybody is free to apply at any time.

They were summarily deprived of their citizenship.

There is no obstacle to this. Anybody is free to apply; but the granting of citizenship does not take place automatically. The position is and—now I am not trying to evade this; I am going to be very honest—that we are not prepared to give South African citizenship to a Black man who is currently a Transkeian citizen or a citizen of Bophuthatswana if he is not a citizen of one of the remaining non-independent homelands. When our policy is implemented to the full, we will still have that sort of person with us, and we have still to make political provision for him. That is my policy. I am being honest and I am not going to try to hide it. I stand by it. Hon. members can argue as much as they please but that remains my standpoint.

That is where we differ so completely.

Yes. That is where we differ completely, and I am grateful for it because I must differ from hon. members on this point. Humane considerations and other problems may arise. It may happen that a whole tribe may be living in a particular territory and because they become dissatisfied, they move to another territory. Now they apply for citizenship of the new territory where they have settled. That can be considered under this measure, but a person of such a tribe must first obtain citizenship of one of the non-independent homelands in South Africa before he can obtain South African citizenship. If that homeland eventually becomes independent, he will, in terms of our agreement, obtain citizenship of that homeland. There must be no illusions about this, because if our policy is taken to its full logical conclusion as far as the Black people are concerned, there will not be one Black man with South African citizenship. [Interjections.] I say this sincerely, because that is the idea behind it. Why should I try to hide it? That is our policy in terms of the mandate we have been given.

It is a dream which will turn into a nightmare.

We shall see. In other words, every Black man in South Africa will eventually be accommodated politically in some independent new state in this honourable way and there will no longer be a moral obligation on this Parliament to accommodate these people politically, so that argument falls away. I am being honest and am putting my cards on the table for hon. members. That is our policy and we shall try as far as possible to follow it and implement it. It is clear that as a result of that point of departure as a philosophical basis, it is necessary when a Black man who was previously a citizen of Bophuthatswana or Transkei wishes to return for humane reasons and applies for citizenship of an existing non-independent homeland, for the Minister to be able to grant him citizenship on that recommendation. Then he automatically becomes a South African citizen as well. But we are not prepared to accept a Black man as a South African citizen if he does not simultaneously have citizenship of a territory of a territorial authority or legislative assembly of one of the non-independent homelands. I cannot put it more clearly than that. That is our point of departure and our philosophy of life. We shall have to agree to differ with the Opposition on this matter.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—124: Albertyn, J. T.; Badenhorst, P. J.; Ballot, G. C.; Barnard, S. P.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Coetzer, H. S.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Cuyler, W. J.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A M. van A.; De Klerk, F. W.; Delport, W. H.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, B. J.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Du Plessis, P. T. C.; Durr, K. D.; Durrant, R. B.; Du Toit, J. P.; Greeff, J. W.; Grobler, J. P.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hayward, S. A. S.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Heyns, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; Janson, J.; Janson, T. N. H.; Jordaan, J. H.; Koornhof, P. G. J.; Kotzé, G. J.; Kotzé, W. D.; Krijnauw, P. H. J.; Kruger, J. T.; Langley, T.; Le Grange, L.; Le Roux, F. J. (Brakpan); Le Roux, F. J. (Hercules); Le Roux, Z. P.; Ligthelm, C. J.; Ligthelm, N. W.; Lloyd, J. J.; Louw, E.; Louw, E. van der M.; Malan, G. F.; Malan, J. J.; Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Marais, J. S.; Marais, P. S.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Myburgh, G. B.; Niemann, J. J.; Nortje, J. H.; Olckers, R. de V.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, S. P.; Pretorius, N. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Reyneke, J. P. A.; Rossouw, D. H.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schoeman, H.; Schoeman, J. C. B.; Simkin, C. H. W.; Smit, H. H.; Snyman, W. J.; Steyn, D. W.; Steyn, S. J. M.; Swanepoel, K. D.; Swiegers, J. G.; Tempel, H. J.; Terblanche, G. P. D.; Theunissen, L. M.; Treurnicht, A. P.; Ungerer, J. H. B.; Uys, C.; Van den Berg, J. C.; Van der Merwe, C. V.; Van der Merwe, H. D. K.; Van der Merwe, J. H.; Van der Merwe, S. W.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Walt, H. J. D.; Van der Watt, L.; Van der Westhuyzen, J. J. N.; Van Heerden, R. F.; Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Mosselbaai); Van Rensburg, H. M. J. (Rosettenville); Van Tonder, J. A.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Wyk, A. C.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wessels, L.; Wilkens, B. H.; Worrall, D. J.

Tellers: L. J. Boths, J. H. Hoon, S. F. Kotzé, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and V. A. Volker.

Noes—26: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Dalling, D. J.; De Beer, Z. J.; De Jong, G.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Eglin, C. W.; Lorimer, R. J.; Malcomess, D. J. N.; Marais, J. F.; Miller, R. B.; Myburgh, P. A.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; Slabbert, F. van Z.; Sutton, W. M.; Suzman, H.; Swart, R. A. F.; Van der Merwe, S. S.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Widman, A. B.; Wood, N. B.

Tellers: B. R. Bamford and A. L. Boraine.

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The present Nursing Act was passed by Parliament in 1957. In recent years, the department has engaged in an intensive revision and modernization of laws. After the revision of the Dental Mechanicians Act, which is now receiving attention, all the legislation relating to the control of health professions will have been revised.

The present Act was introduced in order to control the profession in the interests of the public. The principles of the Bill are accordingly based on the principles contained in the present Act and have been adapted to comply with present-day circumstances. The structure of the Pharmacy Act, 1974, and the Medical, Dental and Supplementary Health Service Professions Act, 1974, has been followed in the Bill, in order to achieve uniformity in legislation as far as possible.

The Bill was also published for comment, and the comment that was received was studied very thoroughly before the final preparation of the Bill. Since the Bill involves only the consolidation and modernization of existing legislation, I shall only refer to a few principles.

The first question I should like to explain is the constitution of the S.A. Nursing Council. As hon. members will see, there is a complete deviation from the present constitution of the council. The basic principle underlying the establishment of a council of this nature is that it should be an knowledgeable body composed of knowledgeable persons, since the council must control the profession in the interests of the patient. It is not and has never been the intention that such a council should be a representative body. Therefore the persons attached to the various bodies that are mentioned will serve on the council because of their knowledge of the specific field and not in order to represent that particular body. That is why the qualification is laid down that members of the council who are drawn from the nursing profession have to be registered nurses, for nowadays such persons are expected to be qualified in all facets of nursing.

The present requirement that the council should consist only of Whites is no longer applicable in the times in which we live. Representations have accordingly been received from the profession for the provisions in this connection to be changed completely. Hon. members will therefore notice that apart from the election of members, there is no reference to race in the Bill. As far as the election of members is concerned, an attempt has been made to provide for the registered nurses in the various race groups to elect a number of members which is as far as possible proportionate to the respective numbers of each group. Apart from the fact that minority groups are recognized, this is, I believe, a very equitable approach to the matter, for it will ensure that a number of knowledgeable persons from every race group which is proportionate, as far as is practicable, to the number of registered nurses in the race group concerned, will serve as full members of the council.

The second aspect I should like to highlight is the question of the Nursing Association. Like the council, this association is, in a certain sense, statutory, but it is not so representative with regard to the fulfilment of the State’s obligations. The constitution, functions and control of the association are regulated in terms of part IV of the present Act. The association represents the profession and membership of registered and enrolled persons is obligatory. I am not aware of any other representative body whose affairs are regulated in terms of the Act, and therefore I believe that it should be left to the discretion of the members of the association themselves to manage their own affairs. However, there are good reasons why the survival of the present association, with the power henceforth to control its own affairs, should be ensured.

In the first place, the association employs a large number of people. If the association were allowed to disintegrate, it would be difficult to ensure the continued employment of these people. In the second place, the association owns property and it would be difficult to dispose of this in the event of disintegration. Thirdly, various schemes for the benefit of members have been instituted by the association, such as indemnity and other assurance. These matters would be crucially affected if the association were allowed to disintegrate. Under the circumstances, I believe that we are obliged to ensure the survival of the Nursing Association. In fact, serious representations have been received from the association to this effect.

Finally, I should like to explain the prohibition of strikes. In the process of revision, the association made serious representations for such a prohibition to be included in the Bill. I should like to emphasize that these representations did not emanate from a Government body, but from the association representing the practitioners. The premise of the association is that it runs counter to the very essence of the profession for a practitioner to be allowed to strike in order to further his own ends, thereby endangering the lives and health of patients. The association stated that the decision had been unanimous and was unanimously supported by the various race groups. As far as this matter is concerned, I should like to express my appreciation to the profession for its standpoint and responsible behaviour. In fact, I should like to express my appreciation for the responsible conduct of the profession in general. The nursing profession is one which believes in negotiations for the settlement of any disputes and not in confrontation and militant action. Over the years, the profession has faithfully adhered to this standpoint, and it has always proceeded from the premise that the interests of the patient should come first. I want to assure the profession that the public of South Africa have great appreciation for this behaviour and is proud of the nursing profession.

We have long felt that the Act should be adapted to comply with the requirements of our times. Since we enjoy the support of the profession for these changes, I trust that the profession will gain by the new dispensation.

Mr. Speaker, this excellent Bill is the result of constructive negotiation between the department and the nursing profession in South Africa. I have heard from authorities in the nursing profession that it is a consequence of cordial co-operation over a period of many years between the hon. the Minister and his department on the one hand and the profession on the other. South Africa may rightly be proud of the nursing profession, which both here and abroad, has built up an enviable reputation for dutiful service to mankind over the years, for dedication to its task and for the extension and maintenance of the highest standards. South African nurses were the first in the world to be granted statutory recognition. This was done as long ago as 1891. On 6 June 1944 the first Nursing Act (Act No. 45 of 1944) was promulgated. This was the first important milestone along the long road of the nursing profession in South Africa.

With the introduction of this legislation we are now reaching the second very important milestone in the history of this profession. Therefore, on behalf of my party and on behalf of hon. members on this side of the House I want to pledge our full support to this legislation and also convey our congratulations to both the professional people who have worked so long and so hard in order to have this legislation introduced here, and to the hon. the Minister and his department for their participation in the passing of this legislation. The most important objective of this legislation is the restructuring of the South African Nursing Council.

I should just like to make a few remarks about this, and about some of the provisions of the Bill. In the first place I want to refer to the definition of “registered nurse” and “enrolled nurse”, as we find them in the Bill. I have been informed that there is a specific, important difference between what is known as a registered nurse and an enrolled nurse in the profession itself. In English there is no difference and these two categories are described as a “registered nurse” and an “enrolled nurse” respectively. However, I understand that in order to conform with the practice in Europe, as well as with the modern usage which has developed in the profession itself, the profession wishes the two terms “registered nurse” on the one hand and “enrolled nurse” on the other, to be used because there is a specific difference between the two. The two terms refer to two different categories of nurses. It has to do with the qualifications of the two categories as well as with their registration and with the duties which can be entrusted to the two separate categories.

I should like to appeal to the hon. the Minister to give his favourable consideration to these petitions which have been addressed to him by the profession. I should also like to mention that provision is made in the Bill for accoucheurs. I wonder how many hon. members know that this is the English translation for a “vroedmeester”. I noticed that the word “accoucheur” is used in the Bill. What is important is that since midwives sometimes find it dangerous—both in the rural areas and in urban areas—to render their services at night and in the early hours of the morning, it was therefore considered essential to provide for the training of accoucheurs. They are indeed people who can cope with the dangers which I referred to more easily.

Another important provision in this legislation is that licences are now going to be issued to what are described as “nursing agencies”. These licences will only be issued to agencies which comply with certain specific requirements of the council. A licence of this nature may either be renewed or revoked. This will mean that agencies of this type will not in future be guilty of anomalies which occurred amongst such agencies in the past. This is something which is welcomed both by the public and the profession, and it is a good thing that these agencies will also be subject to control by the council in future. Of course, this will mean that the service which they provide, will be of a high standard.

Furthermore I should like to say something about the composition of the council. The first interesting aspect is that provision is made in the composition of the council for the Minister to appoint two laymen. These are people who are not already members of the council and who are not necessarily closely connected with the medical profession either. The reason for this is the necessity to have two people on the council who can actively represent the interests of the public and can therefore put the approach and problems of the public before the council. This is an interesting feature of this legislation. I think it is a good feature.

In clause 5(1)(f) provision is made for the appointment of an officer of the Department of National Education to the council. The profession asked for it to be specified that that officer should be an educationist. They were afraid that, if this were not specified, it could perhaps happen that someone who was merely an administrative officer could be appointed to this post on the council. The profession wants this person to be a qualified educationist, someone with knowledge and experience of education. They want that member of the council to be able to provide the council with information about the integration of the activities of the council with the requirements of education. Therefore, I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister to give his favourable consideration to that request of the profession. Furthermore, the hon. the Minister made mention of the fact that there is an important difference in the composition of the council. Whereas the council formerly consisted exclusively of Whites, it will in future also be representative of the other race groups in South Africa. We are very grateful for this provision and we therefore give it our full support.

In fact, it is a very important step forward on the long road which lies ahead. At this stage I merely want to express the hope that, along this road, we shall see the day when race and colour will no longer be a primary basis for the election of members to any council or body in South Africa. I hope the day will dawn when all South Africans, irrespective of race or colour, will be considered and elected for any post, to any body or council in South Africa, on merit alone. It is interesting to note that at present there are 30 000 registered White, 18 000 registered Black, 3 000 registered Coloured and 600 registered Indian nurses in the country. South Africa can definitely consider itself fortunate in having such a large number—it is more than 51 000— fully qualified registered nurses at its disposal. One of the conditions for election to the council is that all members of the council must be South African citizens. I think that criticism could probably be expressed concerning this, but I should like to mention that the profession is in favour of all members of the council being South African citizens. This is probably because between 700 and 1 000 foreign nurses come to South Africa every year in order to work here and it is essential to keep control of the council in the hands of South African citizens.

Now there is one little matter which I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister. I did this last year too, when we discussed legislation concerning his department. It is that the hon. the Minister has once again failed to make provision in this legislation for the election of representatives of local authorities. I believe it is absolutely essential for the effective exercise of the duties and responsibilities of the council, for them to have the opportunity of having at their disposal on the council, the knowledge and experience of representatives of local authorities. There are thousands of registered nurses in South Africa who work for local authorities and who have certain specific responsibilities with respect to the whole population of South Africa. If one takes a look at these responsibilities, there is practically no citizen of South Africa who does not receive medical services from the local authorities at some stage or another. I very definitely want to bring this to the attention of the hon. the Minister once again. I think it is absolutely essential for him to make provision for the representation of local authorities. The nurses who work for the local authorities, are there to see that people are kept out of the hospitals. They have a very important task to perform and they should be represented here too.

There are one or two other matters which I shall raise during the Committee Stage. I want to identify myself with the statements which the hon. the Minister made concerning the unanimous decision of the Nursing Association, viz. that they have requested a provision in this legislation to prevent their members from participating in a strike or a go-slow strike and that they may not be guilty of any action which could disrupt their activities in any respect. In this way I want to associate myself fully with this measure and congratulate the profession on their approach.

Mr. Speaker, at the outset may I express my thanks for the courtesy of the Whips opposite who have made it possible for me to come into the debate at this stage and may I then continue by saying that it is acceptable in one’s maiden speech to pay tribute to the member who has preceded one in this House. I follow in the footsteps of someone who, I believe, will leave a lasting impression with this House. He will be remembered by you, Mr. Speaker, and by hon. members opposite as a person whose word was his deed. He applied himself conscientiously and tirelessly to the work of this House and he achieved recognition for the courteous and sincere way in which he set about that work. It is therefore a source of real pride to me that I can today pay this brief but sincere tribute to the former member for Berea, my father. I understand that we may have achieved a unique happening in South African politics in that it is the first time that a son has succeeded his father in the same constituency without a break in between. I am sure nobody will take exception if I were to say that we wish the former member a long and happy retirement. I have a rather difficult example to follow.

The second tribute I would like to pay is to the nursing profession of South Africa. A more dedicated band of professional people it would be difficult to find. They work long hours and their pay could be better, but their contribution to the health services of South Africa is absolutely invaluable. When one thinks about it, nurses share the most intimate moments of our lives, from the cradle right through to the grave. They see the happiness of the new-born baby, the tragedy of death, the drama of sudden illness, the trauma of serious accidents and the heart wrenching sadness of incurable diseases. They see it all, they deal with it all, and they live with it all every day of their lives. I think it is fitting that we can record here this afternoon our deep appreciation of their involvement in and their care of the health services in South Africa. As is known, in past years this country had a shortage of nursing staff, but in recent years this position has changed. There are now more applicants available than positions to fill. Some of those wishing to train as nurses have had to be content with training as nurse-aids. One can only estimate the talents that have been lost to the nursing profession as a result. One wonders whether ways and means could not therefore be investigated to open up more positions for nurses in the overall scope of the work of the health team in South Africa, especially as there are staff shortages in some of the other paramedical services involved in health care.

One such possibility, I believe, exists in the better health care of our rural population. Of the many thousands of people living in the far-flung rural areas, the majority are historically Black. It is fairly generally conceded that their health care could be better catered for in certain ways. I would like to suggest that the possibility be investigated of creating new posts in these distant rural areas for nurses who can fulfil functions similar to and perhaps even more far-reaching than those of existing district nurses. Certain nurses senior in service could be offered these comprehensive health-care positions. My reasons for suggesting senior nurses is twofold. Firstly, they would probably have wider practical experience, which could be of great value in the absence of ready access to doctors. Secondly, being closer to retirement, they may welcome the chance to serve among their own communities in an effective capacity at perhaps a slower working pace. One can only imagine the inestimable value of a concerned, experienced senior person working in a community that is happy to accept the services offered. The experienced nurse could quickly spot the first tell-tale signs of, for example, malnutrition in children. Immediate preventive measures could be set in motion. In such conditions R1 worth of powdered milk could save hundreds of rands worth of hospitalization later on.

Many further examples could be mentioned, but I make the suggestion so that the principle can be considered.

The Bill before the House today is the culmination of changes and improvements that have been made to the original legislation, the Nursing Act, No. 69 of 1957. It is of interest to note some of the more significant changes that have taken place in those 21 years. Probably the most important is that referred to by the hon. member for Bryanston, in which the composition of the council, established by section 2 of the original Act, has been up-dated. Originally ten White registered nurses were elected to the council by their colleagues and Whites, representing Blacks and Coloureds only, were elected indirectly. This has now been changed. Black, Indian and Coloured nurses, numbering five of the then, are elected directly by their respective race groups. There may be those who claim that the composition is not ideal or perfect, but we believe that it is realistic and an improvement, and as such can be fully supported.

Clause 40(2)(a) and (b) causes us no problems because no less a person than Prof. Charlotte Searle, who is president of the S.A. Nursing Association, has indicated very clearly that the Bill has been introduced by the hon. the Minister at the specific request of the association. Prof. Searle is quoted in the Press as having said—

She added that the S.A. Nursing Association had left the International Council of Nurses at the Montreal Congress some years ago because they rejected a stand that nurses should have the right to strike action.

*As we can see, this Bill is a neat synopsis and consolidation of the various regulations. Consequently the NRP accepts the improvements, and we shall give the hon. the Minister our support as regards the proposed legislation.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I should like to express my thanks to you and hon. members of this House for the courtesy I have been shown in the course of my speech.