Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, when the House adjourned yesterday evening, the hon. member for Umlazi had just completed his maiden speech. On behalf of the House, I should like to offer him our congratulations on that speech. I am sure the House will agree that the presentation of the hon. member’s speech heralds the fact that he will play a very important part in this House and in the deliberations that are yet to take place. We wish him a long and successful parliamentary career.

It is 27 years, almost to the day—I think but for a matter of a mere four days—since I had the privilege, as one of the youngest members of the House, of making my maiden speech. I should like to tell the hon. member for Umlazi that I probably share the same anxiety neurosis on this occasion that he suffered from yesterday and I suffered from 27 years ago. After an absence of 11 years, the privilege is granted to me to return here as the representative of the heart of our largest city and the financial centre of our free enterprise economy, a constituency always considered a traditional bastion of the Opposition since the time of the “uitlanders”. It is a constituency with probably the highest proportion of citizens who use English as their home language, a constituency with many prominent industrialists, businessmen and financiers who reject—let me mention in passing—the theories enunciated by the hon. member for Parktown in the course of this debate and on another occasion, and I am referring to the fact that economic integration must, of necessity, lead to political integration. I recall that when the hon. member was speaking in 1955 that same theory, which has long been rejected, was being put forward by the hon. member for Edenvale. I would have thought, however, that after an absence of some 17 years, the hon. member for Parktown would have brought himself more up to date with the developments that have taken place in our country since then.

I am also appreciative of the privilege the House grants hon. members making a maiden speech but no doubt, as I address the House, hon. members will recall to mind past debates in which I have participated and in which the atmosphere could not have been described as tranquil, as is the atmosphere at present. After the passing of years one returns to find the changes in outlook and the acceptance of a national South African identity by the nation very clearly reflected in this Parliament. This is very clearly shown in the number of members in these Government benches and the very small minority constituting the hon. Opposition.

We are a truly united Afrikaner nation. I include the word “Afrikaner” intentionally to embrace all White citizens, not only because I am proud to call myself an Afrikaner, but also because all my life I have believed what Gen. Hertzog, one of the founders of this party, said 65 years ago. He said that there was only one test for being able to call oneself an Afrikaner, no matter whether one were English speaking or Afrikaans speaking, and that was whether one put South Africa first.

Having stated that, as I felt I should, I wish to take this opportunity to remind the hon. the Leader of the Opposition of certain statements he made during the course of the election campaign. He made several speeches and I shall quote just one of the headlines he got: “Eglin: the English will spurn the National Party.” This type of headline appeared all over the country. I should like to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition today: Who were the English he was referring to? Were they South Africans, or did he consider them as something separate? The second question I should like to ask him is this: Does he still see division between English speakers and Afrikaans speakers in our country? Sir, the hon. gentleman is hiding himself behind the hon. member for Musgrave. [Interjections.] I should like to ask him: When he made that type of statement, was he not making himself guilty of sowing discord in the White nation for political ends? This does not only refer to him, but also to his allies. Sir, I know that the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, as I have seen on my return to the House, retains on occasions a very discreet silence, but I should nevertheless like to ask him another question. I think it is important that English-speaking South Africans should know the answers to these questions. Was it his objective, when he made that type of statement, to tell the world that we are a White nation in Southern Africa divided against itself on a language basis? Was that his objective? Sir, I think the White nation of South Africa gave the hon. the Leader of the Opposition his reply in the results of this election as evidenced in the House by the number of Government members. Let me just in passing tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that this kind of talk no longer carries any weight in South Africa.

Have you ever considered that the majority may be wrong?

South Africans who use English as their home language are grateful to the hon. the Prime Minister for the opportunity he provided them in the last election to give expression to their feelings of nationhood and pride in their country. On 28 November last year he said—

Mr. Speaker, the people of South Africa have united.

Sir, I have used the words “White Afrikaner nation” for two reasons. Firstly, we in these benches look at South Africa from a multinational viewpoint. In this regard we are irretrievably committed to bringing to fulfilment the desire of other national groups for recognition of their own political identity and the right to determine their own future. I believe we shall never be able to retain our own identity in the future without fulfilling this obligation and honourable undertaking. I shall come back to this in a minute.

The Leader of the official Opposition has, both in and outside of the House, rejected any responsibility by the White nation for this objective. He has stated that the Government represents a minority opinion in a multiracial society of some 20 million. This is his main reason for persistently supporting Donald Woods in his representations at the United Nations for a multiracial convention to draw up a new constitution for South Africa. What I would like to know, and what South Africa would like to know, is whether the hon. the Leader of the Opposition briefed Donald Woods or did he take his briefing from Donald Woods. The official Opposition in their acceptance of multiracialism as the basis of their policy, has lost faith in White South Africa. What is more, they have lost faith in themselves. They, Mr. Speaker, now seek their political future in alliances with dissident Black groups. The fact that they are in this House is only as a result of the whiteouting of the political organization to which they formerly belonged.

There is no better witness of that than the hon. member for Durban Point in recent years and myself in earlier years. They are now set on the same path—because it is the only tactic they know—of attempting to white-out South Africa’s accepted constitution and the confidence that people have in themselves. In this regard I can only classify the Official Opposition of this House in the same category—because they have the same motivation—as the Black Consciousness Movement. They are motivated in the same way, viz. to destroy all and to attempt to build on the ruins. It is a significant fact, however, that this is also the basis of Marxist policy. No one who has impartially observed the attitude of hon. members on those benches and the speeches made by them in this House since the commencement of the session, can come to any other conclusion than that the hon. Leader of the Opposition and his followers are set on the road of creating an atmosphere of confrontation in our country between the various national groups.

I have referred to the fact that I have, since my return to the House, observed that certain changes have taken place. The greatest change, I find, is that the Official Opposition, in the first time in the history of South Africa, denies White South Africans their own national identity and, secondly, sells South Africa short on every possible occasion.

I believe that we have achieved the ideal which all our great leaders of the past, including our present Prime Minister, had as their goal, viz. the complete unity of the White nation. There can never again be any classification of Whites by means of language or country of origin. We stand as South Africans and we are all Afrikaners belonging to the White tribe of Southern Africa. We are enriched by the various cultural backgrounds which is evolving into something essentially South African. In view of our bilingualism there is nothing that belongs exclusively in our cultural heritage to any one particular group. We share it all equally in our White nation of varying identities. We are bound with a bond of love and loyalty to South Africa. I would therefore like to ask hon. members in the Official Opposition benches: If they profess to be a new party—and they must not come today with the thought and idea that they had no time to draw up a proper programme of principles because this is fundamental—where in their party’s programme of principles does any word appear proclaiming such basic principles of South Africanism as I have just outlined? It stands in this party’s programme. I hope the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will take the opportunity—I understand he is going to speak just now—to quote it and to show it to us. I also want to ask the hon. member: Does he and his party accept such beliefs in South Africanism as I have just outlined? What is their definition of South African identity? Is it a mixed integrated society, an open society? I know, however, what will be said outside. To express sentiments such as I have now expressed, is to classify oneself to Progressive members as a rabid racialist. Those who do not accept this philosophy deny South Africa, and I can only describe them—these are strong words—as Gen. Hertzog once described them, as “bastard sheep in a farmer’s pure-bred stock, and that they are worth no more than the dung caked to the wall of the kraal to be washed away in the next rains”. [Interjections.]

Order! Are those words not perhaps too strong? The fact that the hon. member quoted Gen. Hertzog does not change their meaning.

It is a quotation, Mr. Speaker.

I cannot allow unparliamentary expressions, even in quotations.

I then withdraw the word “dung”, Sir.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member withdrew only one word. I think he should withdraw the entire quotation.

Order! The hon. member withdrew the whole quotation.

He withdrew only a single word. I think he can confirm that.

*Mr. S. F. KOTZÉ: Mr. Speaker, with all respect, I do not believe what the hon. member said was unparliamentary.

No, I ruled that it was unparliamentary and I particularly had the words “dung on the wall” in mind.

With respect, Sir, I do not think it is unparliamentary in the Afrikaans idiom.

No, I do not think it is parliamentary. Personally, I do not like it and therefore I have asked the hon. member to withdraw that specific part.

That kind of language fits neatly in the “kraal” of the NP. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Bryanston must withdraw that remark.

I withdraw it, Sir.

Mr. Speaker, I have said that the Official Opposition sells South Africa short, and I am sorry to see that the hon. member for Bezuidenhout had to leave the House during these uncomfortable moments. I hope his Whip will ask him to return, if possible, because I am going to deal with him. The PFP align themselves with the enemies of South Africa on every possible occasion. Let us look at what took place here yesterday. On the one hand we had …

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member permitted to say that this party aligns itself with the enemies of South Africa? [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member is putting something which he wants to say too strongly. Personally I think that it is unparliamentary to accuse any hon. member of the House of actively aligning—the word “aligns” entails actively—himself with an enemy of this country.

I was trying to convey that the attitudes expressed by hon. members in their speeches can only be construed in a manner as aligning itself with the attitudes of our enemies abroad.

Order! Did the hon. member say that the hon. members align •themselves with the enemies of South Africa? If he did the hon. member must withdraw it.

I withdraw that statement. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, look what took place yesterday. On the one hand we had the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the request of South Africa defending South Africa and putting South Africa’s case on the American television. He spoke as a South African. On the other hand we had the spectacle of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout speaking in the House as an apologist for Swapo, enlarging the attractions of their socialist policies and land distribution, and whitewashing their Marxist philosophy. These are two contrasting attitudes. [Interjections.] There are many other examples, but my time does not permit me to give them all. The most shocking example of it all is a speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout during the election. In big, bold, black type headlines in more than one English newspaper and also overseas newspapers it was reported: “A vote for the Nats is a vote for war,” says Basson.

The remarkable thing about this statement is that in the context of that speech it is precisely the representation of Government policies made by the Patriotic Front, Joshua Nkomo and company, and Swapo before the United Nations, namely that South Africa is a threat to the peace in Southern Africa as a result of the policies of this Government.

The hon. member for Bezuidenhout purports to be the PFP’s official spokesman on foreign affairs. Through the years, as I personally know, he has hob-nobbed with representatives of other countries. He is a great favourite in some quarters. I would like to ask him now—he is not here; so perhaps the hon. the Leader of the Opposition can answer it: Does he ever defend his country and if so how does he do it? The hon. member has a motion on the Order Paper for debate later and I hope he will tell us on that occasion how he defends and protects South Africa’s interests.

Far more effectively than you do.

I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition whether he endorses the statement of the hon. member for Bezuidenhout, namely that the policies of this Government may lead us to war and that South Africa will become a threat to the peace in Southern Africa. He can simply say “yes” or “no”. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

Does the hon. the Leader of the Opposition say “yes”? [Interjections.] If the hon. member says “yes” then he confirms that the PFP’s official spokesman on foreign affairs puts the case of the Patriotic Front. [Interjections.]

We in these benches believe it is a historical inevitability that our country will play a part in Africa. It is our destiny and we cannot escape it, because it is our calling in Africa. The right of self-determination of all national groups and non-interference in internal affairs of one another is a cardinal point of policy to the Government. Yet, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout sells his country short and again allies himself with those who are unfriendly towards South Africa. [Interjections.] He tells the world that we are set on the road to war as a result of the policies of this side of the House. Mr. Speaker, are their political souls so dead that they never unto themselves have said: This is my own, my native land, and I shall protect it? Their policy is one of conciliation; otherwise there is no substance to the proposal that we continually have to listen to for the calling of a multiracial convention to determine a new constitutional set-up. To achieve this end they have set out upon the road of destroying our people’s moral fibre and of creating a national guilt complex regarding the non-White peoples of this country. As a White nation of Afrikaners we have no need to conciliate anyone, because we have wronged no one. We only seek the path of friendship with the right to determine our own internal affairs.

In conclusion—and I hope I get injury time—I should like very briefly to return to our first point, viz. our acceptance of multinationalism and our rejection of multiracialism. This, Sir, does not make us racists. On the contrary, I believe it places a great responsibility on the White nation for the proper development of human relationships which will be an example to the world. When one gives to people their own national identity and self-respect, one does not treat them as inferior persons. Every White citizen who gave a mandate to the Government to execute this policy carries an individual responsibility to ensure the proper conduct of human relationships in our country. It is not an attitude of race and it is not a question of whether one is White, Black, Brown or Yellow. It is our responsibility as human beings towards other human creatures of God’s creation. I think the concept of race relations has for ever gone from South Africa. I therefore throw back with contempt at the feet of the hon. the Leader of the official Opposition the question he posed to the hon. the Prime Minister on another occasion when he asked whether the Government considered Black people to be human beings as it considered White people to be. The inference of that question is very clear: to play up to the audience outside the boundaries of South Africa.

It is inevitable that in terms of our policy the pattern which will emerge will be one of politically independent States who will, firstly, co-operate economically and, secondly, rely on one another technically. They will be politically independent and not subservient to one another, but will support one another without prescribing to one another and without interfering in one another’s internal affairs. They will inevitably from an economic power bloc for the exploitation of the great resources of Southern Africa which have few comparisons in the rest of the world.

I believe the mandate given by White South Africa to this Government is the result of a decision taken some 140 years ago by our forefathers. I believe the South African nation renewed that decision in the past election in the knowledge that we have attained fulfilment in the recognition of our national identity as a nation with an unswerving bond of loyalty to South Africa.

I wish to quote an extract from the renowned words of Piet Relief at the commencement of the Great Trek. It is significant that those words were first quoted, written and made known to the world in the English language. I believe they apply to the circumstances of today and to the future which lies ahead as much as they applied to the circumstances of those times. I quote—

Those words have echoed through the centuries. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the hon. member for Von Brandis on his return to the House, 27 years after making his maiden speech. I also want to congratulate him on keeping out of Parliament another member of the present-day Milner Kindergarten. [Interjections.] I am glad to hear that he has not forgotten those original principles on which he was originally and previously elected to Parliament many, many years ago. I wish him well on behalf of those who sit with me in these benches.

Why do you not go and join him?

At question time recently I put a question to the hon. the Minister of Finance, asking him whether his attention had been drawn to the report of alleged financial troubles of quoted South African companies which had been published in the business section of the Sunday Times on 5 February. The hon. the Minister replied that he was aware of the report and that he was doing something about it. I await with great interest his reply to this debate to see what he is going to do about it. If ever there was an example of journalistic incompetence and reckless irresponsibility, then this was it. The report will no doubt result in court actions for defamation by some of the companies concerned and I certainly hope to see the withdrawal of their advertisements from the paper concerned. But that is not enough. The matter cannot be left there. The investment section of our economy has undoubtedly been harmed by this report. This newspaper, the Sunday Times, is known for its reckless irresponsibility and its malice which in the political sphere has resulted in the destruction of the old UP and the sending to Parliament of the weakest opposition in the history of the country in the form of the PFP, in fact, a move towards a one-party state in the Republic. What happened on this occasion? The Sunday Times came into possession of a financial analysis by a reputable firm of Johannesburg brokers who in the course of business circulated it to its clientele. When in the right hands this is a normal and useful service performed by brokers for their clients, but in the hands of the Sunday Times, with a claimed readership of 500 000, it became a weapon which could be used to detrimental effect, and of course it was. Under a banner headline, “50 large firms are facing troubles”, it stated—

Sir, that means going bankrupt—

The report then stated that the brokers had made a serious attempt to give 211 companies quoted on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange a financial rating based on six determined financial ratios. The Sunday Times went on to name 21 leading companies and stated that the brokers regarded them as inordinately high risks. It then went on to say that there were a further 32 leading companies which the broker regarded as extremely high risks. It concluded its report by saying—

At some stage, apparently, before going on to the streets, the Sunday Times suddenly decided that publication of this particular story was highly dangerous and undesirable, of course to the Sunday Times, but not to South Africa! Then began a fantastic rescue operation in the Sunday Times offices and hundreds of workers in four cities, then state, were employed to rip off the top half of the front page of the Business Times. But some of the fish escaped the net. The Business Times in fact did get to the public and I have here a photostat copy of it. It got to the public without being mutilated by the perspiring hundreds of Sunday Times workers working around the clock in the Sunday Times offices. Other editions appeared with the names of the companies blanked out and the rest were received by mystified readers in a mutilated form with the top half of the Business Times tom off. The Sunday Times editor, one Tertius Myburgh, insisted that the Business Times had appeared with the top half of its front page missing owing to a technical problem. Then, a senior member of his staff said that the top half of the page had been mutilated by the printing press. The Sunday Times editor, this same Myburgh, on being pressed for a further explanation, gave an undertaking to reprint the same article the following Sunday. This last weekend, I am sure, hon. members and I, waited with interests to see the reprint of the original article in the Business Times. I am sure that other readers were looking forward to reading what we, who had had the original version, had been privileged to read. They naturally expected an appropriate explanation as to why the article should have been withdrawn one week but published the next week. We can imagine their surprise and, I am sure, the surprise of hon. members, when the headline read: “Sixteen firms may face gearing problems”. Then followed a completely different version to that which had appeared in the Sunday Times the week before.

The revised version was in fact so revised that not one of the 32 leading companies described in the first article as being extremely high risks was quoted by name at all. To prove to this hon. House just how “leading” the companies were that were omitted, I want to mention the name of only one of them, a name which is not unknown to hon. members of the PFP—Amaprop. That is the leading property company in the Anglo-American stable.

In a little note attached to the report the Sunday Times editor states that the Sunday Times is proud of its action in tearing off the top half of the front page of the Business Times. “It is in keeping”, it says, “with the best newspaper traditions”. Then, it goes on to say—

Hon. members who used to be members of the old UP, and who today are not in the PFP, will have noted with interest the attempts at fairness and balance displayed by the Sunday Times over a long period of time!

In the week following the blunder of the Sunday Times, 26 editorial posts on the Sunday Express and The Rand Daily Mail were declared redundant. Twelve journalists were sacked with immediate effect. Some of those journalists were newspapermen with more than 20 years’ experience. The announcement was made by Mr. Kinsley, until recently a senior executive of the Argus Company, and now the managing director of SAAN. According to the editorial chapter of SAAN there was no prior consultation with the journalists. The retrenchments were presented to the chapter as a fait accomple. There was a complete lack of consideration for the people concerned. All of them were literally put out on the streets and had to hunt for jobs in an already saturated journalistic market. The chairman of the chapter, Mr. Emdin, deplored the lack of contact between the management and the editorial staff of SAAN.

In October 1974 I made a speech in this House in which I said that between them, Argus and SAAN controlled 90% of the English-language daily newspapers in South Africa, and all three of the Sunday newspapers. I maintained that the share structure and the holdings of the companies indicated that the interests of SAAN were so interlocked with those of Argus and the Argus Group in fact controlled SAAN. Worse still, Sir, I maintained at the time—and I have greater reason to maintain it more strongly today—that there was uniformity of policy as a result of a virtually monopolistic combine, and that English-speakers had been deprived of the freedom of choice in newspapers. Needless to say, I was criticized and I was pilloried by all the editors, by all the business managers and by all the proprietors of the newspapers concerned. Then, Sir, in 1975 Mr. Louis Luyt made a bid for SAAN. He was referred to in the Financial Mail as “an Afrikaner rushing into an English china shop”, no doubt a Dresden china shop! After hysterical panic in the English Press, 20% of SAAN’s shares were sold by clandestine agreement to a specially created trust, known as the Advowson Trust, controlled by well-known Progs, at a price less than both of Mr. Louis Luyt’s offers. The Financial Mail wrote in great glee at the time that SAAN was now secure from any further take-over bid, and that editorial freedom was virtually guaranteed, and that everybody was happy. I was moved to ask in the House whether the minority shareholders of SAAN were happy since they were receiving R4 per share instead of R4,50 and R6 per share, which they had been offered by Mr. Luyt. I asked whether the SAAN employees were happy that Argus was now firmly entrenched in their company as their éminence grise. I asked whether SAAN employees were happy that they would be able to find jobs in South African journalism if they lost their jobs in either the SAAN or the Argus groups. I asked whether the Society of Journalists were happy that the Argus Company had effectively taken over SAAN and that there was even an exchange of directors between the SAAN and the Argus groups. There was no reaction to what I said, just the deathly silence of a grave-yard. Since then it has publicly been announced by Argus that it controls more than 39% of SAAN shares, openly and directly, in addition to those other shares that it holds clandestinely and in the name of nominee companies.

The Government, some years ago, stepped in and stopped Argus from taking over SAAN. Since then there has been a creeping clandestine take-over of SAAN by the Argus. I want to ask: What is going to happen to the ex-SAAN journalists who have now been put on the streets? The Argus group will not employ them, and the Afrikaans newspapers are not likely to employ the likes of Hennie Serfontein and others! What has happened to the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Express will not be the end of the story. In the boardroom circles of the Argus group there is already talk of further rationalization. In fact, that will mean further retrenchment of journalistic staff.

The circulation figures of the Rand Daily Mail and the Sunday Express are interesting. The Express is clearly on its way out. The Rand Daily Mail is daily losing White readership to The Citizen, and consequently its advertising income is going to fall. This does not cause me any sorrow; the Rand Daily Mail is not called “the Red Daily Mail” for nothing, and the Sunday Express no longer enjoys any status whatsoever in South Africa. What does concern all of us is the complete monopoly that is being created in the English-language Press world. If the Government stepped in some years ago to prevent the Argus group from taking over SAAN, what is the Government now going to be able to do about this situation?

Sir, why am I concerned? I am concerned because English speakers have been deprived of a choice of newspapers. The Citizen is the first English-language newspaper to appear on the scene as a daily for years. It is building for itself an independent place in South African journalism. So far, however, it unfortunately appears only on the Witwatersrand and in portions of Natal. Now that Mr. Luyt has sold out to a consortium, a strong consortium including overseas interests, it is hoped that there will be investment capital available and an expansion by The Citizen into a national daily. And, of course, everybody hopes for a Sunday Citizen. South Africans will always be grateful to Mr. Louis Luyt for what he has done for South African journalism, to give it a new break and a new image. English-speaking readers outside of the areas where The Citizen is available are always having to put up with anti-Government newspapers, always Prog-slanted news and views, and are seldom given the opportunity to consider the other sides—not “side”, but “sides”—to the story. What is more, because of the monopolistic control of blocks of shares and the creation of blocking trusts like the Advowson Trust, English-speaking readers are precluded from doing anything about it through the normal workings of the market place and the business world. The monopoly of Argus and SAAN shares is virtually complete, and what I am asking is why this should be allowed? Monopolies are always a danger, but the English-speaking Press monopoly, at this stage in South Africa’s history, is the last thing that we, as a country, can afford. We need a South African Press that will point to the good as well as the bad in our society, a Press that will seek points of agreement and consensus rather than confrontation, and not just push a leftist and liberal line.

Last year the Government introduced newspaper legislation aimed at entrenching Press freedom and eliminating Press licence and irresponsibility. After the predictable storm of protest, the Government entered into discussions with the National Press Union, as a result of which the Press was given one year’s grace. I sincerely hope that there will soon be a final accommodation between the Press and the Government because things cannot be allowed to go on as they are at present. The present situation is only aggravated, not improved, by the take-over of SAAN by the Argus group. The South African reading public has been deprived of all reasonably objective Press news and views for a long time, but with the Argus take-over of SAAN, South Africans have to read only the Prog-slanted news that is presented to them daily. The Government cannot continue to ignore this state of affairs and pretend that it is only a side-issue. It is not a side-issue. It goes to the root of our internal political problems, it exacerbates race relations, and because only Prog SAAN and Argus journalists write for overseas newspapers, it aggravates our own international image, as the hon. the Minister for Foreign Affairs opposite me knows. South Africa will never receive a better international image until this monopoly in South Africa has been broken. The Government will not be able to arrive at any reasonable accommodation with the National Press Union, an accommodation we all desire, until it takes steps to eliminate the virtual monopoly that has come to exist in the English-language newspaper groups and until the Government has made it possible for South Africans—not groups, not trusts and not corporations—to own and control their own English-language newspapers.

Mr. Speaker, we listened with interest to the hon. member for Simonstown. He is a person who can deal with this subject in a masterly fashion and I think he has once again given us very important insights into it. It is not necessary for me to try to react to his speech. I should like to use the few minutes at my disposal to give attention to certain of the statements which were made from time to time by the Official Opposition, particularly the Leader of the Official Opposition.

One is struck by the fact that the overall view of South Africa of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition is dominated by one basic idea only, and that is that we are dealing here with what he calls a “shared society and common citizenship”. As far as he is concerned, there are only people in South Africa, and South Africa is an undivided country. This is very clearly reflected in what he says, and I am quoting from his speech during the censure debate (Hansard, 2 February, col. 380)—

In other words, one State, one country. What is more, he went on to say with reference to the Official Opposition—and I take this amiss of him because I see in it a bad insinuation—

Does the hon. member wish to imply in this way that members on this side see the Black people of South Africa as their enemies?

Well, you are making foreigners of them.

I shall come back to what the hon. member has just said. I want to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that no party and no Government in the history of South Africa has done so much for the development of Black and Brown people in South Africa than the NP has in fact done. I want to add to that and say that the hon. the Leader is making one fundamental error, namely that as far as the Black people are concerned he refers only to “Black people”; for him there is only one Black community. However, that is not true.

Let me elucidate this. On one occasion I had a conversation with Mr. Letlaka who, if I remember correctly, is now the Minister of Finance of Transkei. He informed me that he was once a member of the ANC and that, when the Government began to take steps against the ANC, he left the country. We had a very frank discussion. He then took up domicile in Britain and lectured in law. Shortly before the Transkei was to become independent the Chief Minister designate of the Transkei contacted him and told him: “I should like you to return to the Transkei. We need your services and talents here.” He considered this, and decided to return conditionally. The condition which he set, according to his own evidence, was that he first wanted to ascertain for himself in Transkei whether it was in fact true that the people of Transkei wanted their independence. He went to Transkei and travelled fairly extensively throughout the territory— again this is according to his own evidence. He spoke to many people and he found that the vast majority of the people of Transkei did in fact want their independence. In other words, he arrived at the conclusion that the people of Transkei did not in the first place set the greatest value on their South African citizenship, but on their Transkeian citizenship; that they did not set the greatest value on belonging to a greater South Africa and on wanting to be taken up into the conglomerate, but set the greatest value on wanting to continue to exist as the Transkei nation, as Xhosa people, on working out their own development and creating their own future. That gentleman is at present a member of the Transkeian Cabinet.

Great progress has already been made with that development and in the meantime Bophuthatswana has also entered the fold, under the leadership of another recognized Black leader. In spite of these events it seems clear from the discussions during the Censure Debate and also during the present debate that these truths have not yet been brought home to the Leader of the Official Opposition or to his party. They still want to bring South Africa back to being one country, one nation and one community with one destination. In that political framework everyone has to be accommodated, according to their programme of principles, their declared policy and the speech made by the hon. the Leader. On the other hand we on this side of the House regard South Africa as a divided country. In part this was indeed the case. Great Britain granted independence to the former British protectorates on the basis that in these protectorates there were small nations, occupying their own territory, that had come into existence historically and that were able to go their own way as independent nations in spite of the objections that economically they could not really be in any way self-supporting. It is our view that South Africa’s development should follow that course. We see South Africa as a country accommodating various nations, nations to whom the maximum independence has to be given within their own national sphere. That is why the demand for “one man, one vote” is not strange to us. We accept it with a specific condition. We have no intention of imposing restrictions on any of the Black nations that become independent and obtain their freedom by telling them whom they should allow to vote. As far as we are concerned, the principle of “one man, one vote” can apply within those territories. When we proceed to create a new dispensation—not, as that hon. member wishes to imply, without the co-operation of the Coloured and the Indians, but with the growing co-operation of those groups—we are also giving expression to that principle within a national context. I want to repeat that expression can be given to the principle of “one man, one vote” in Southern Africa—it is only possible within the framework of the policy of this Government and this party— with the one restriction only that the principle of “one man, one vote” is limited to the sphere of the influence and power of a specific nation or population group. As far as the Bantu nations are concerned, considerable progress has already been made and will continue to be made.

I hope the hon. the Leader of the Opposition will give serious consideration to this fact again, for then he will understand South Africa better and then they will be able to make a better contribution as an Opposition as far as South African politics and the proceedings of this Parliament are concerned.

I listened yesterday afternoon with a feeling of astonishment to the speech made by the hon. member for Bezuidenhout. As a self-appointed expert on South West Africa he made a completely inopportune and uncalled for speech. He did this in spite of the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister had made a statement in which he had said that the House would be properly informed as soon as possible. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition should have a little heart to heart talk with that kind of supporter in the ranks of his party, for then the calibre of his leadership and prestige will perhaps be enhanced somewhat.

They do not listen to him in any case.

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude. The attacks from the Opposition side during the discussion were very meagre and very superficial, but South Africa and the Government will continue— this will probably become apparent, too, when we receive more particulars of the Main Budget—with the active development of the Bantu homelands. As far as the latter are concerned, I feel like using another expression. I would prefer to speak of the development of fatherlands for our Black nations.

We have, as additional proof, the establishment of a new ministry, namely the Ministry of Education and Training. I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister who will hold that portfolio not only on the fact that he has received promotion, but also on the fact that he will have a unique opportunity to give shape to this very important programme.

The Government is proceeding with the development of an extensive infrastructure which will be able to deal with a future upswing in the economy. Development is taking place in respect of our transport—the Railways, the development of new harbours and the expansion of our air services—and our electricity supply. The Government did not sit back and say that times were rather difficult and therefore we should simply do nothing. That development has continued in recent years and it is at present proceeding as rapidly as our economy and the State income can carry it along. It is striking to note that the Government is taking equally positive steps in respect of the saving of strategic raw materials and the development of our own potential. Sasol 2 will stand there as proof of our faith in the future, our clear perception of the needs of the future and also our responsibility in regard to the future. The Government has taken such effective steps in regard to the combating of inflation that the hon. Opposition is able to level hardly any criticism in regard to this important matter. In addition we have also experienced the recovery of a favourable balance of trade. If we consider these factors, we have reason to be optimistic and to reassure ourselves, and to continue in the certain knowledge that South Africa is a country that is not only facing great challenges but one that also has a great potential. All these things are possible because this Government is at the helm, steering a course to a wonderful future.

Mr. Speaker, it seems as if the hon. member for Piketberg wants to quarrel about Transkei and about the independence of the homelands, even though there is no matter about which there is any quarrel between us in principle. I want to reaffirm that the independence of the Bantu homelands is not a policy which we will advocate, as it is not our first choice as a policy. We believe that the Bantu homelands can be better accommodated within the framework of a confederation or a federation. We have made it clear and I should like to confirm today that where it is undoubtedly the desire of the vast majority of people in such a territory to be independent, we shall accept this. However, we lay down two conditions for this. The first condition is that proper borders must be drawn, otherwise there will only be tension between us and them. In the second place, no South African citizen must lose his citizenship without his approval. Therefore we accept the independence of the homelands if they want it, but we lay down these two conditions. They are not only reasonable conditions, but also conditions which will prevent future conflict between the newly independent States and South Africa.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No. I am sorry, but my time is limited. I have only 14 minutes.

If this is so, why do you not influence the homeland leaders to accept independence?

I want to refer very briefly to the hon. member for Von Brandis. I am not going to deal with all that he said. I must say his speech reminded me very much of the old days; he has not lost his ability to make either superficial or offensive statements. This he did again with considerable skill today. He quoted from an article, which he had it in front of him, as follows: “Eglin: English will spurn the NP.” The hon. member did not, however, read the text, but only the headline. What did I in fact say? I quote–—

I said this, because the NP—in my constituency as well as throughout the country— was claiming that it was going to get growing English-speaking support. In other words, it is fine for the NP to claim that they are going to get it, but it is wrong for somebody to suggest that the NP is wrong.

The hon. member started giving us a lecture on national unity amongst Whites. We are not going to fight the Anglo-Boer War again. If one looks around in these benches, one finds English, Afrikaans and Jewish South Africans who represent the voters of South Africa far better than any other party in the House. That is a fact. We believe that loyalty to South Africa cannot be confined only to the Whites and that loyalty to South Africa has got to be something which brings unity between Coloured, Indian, White and Black South Africans. We believe this is paramount, because unless one has that common loyalty transcending the ethnic differences in South Africa, we are not going to be able to survive as an orderly society in this part of the continent. Before I leave the hon. member, there is one more matter I wish to deal with. I said it sounded like the old days when the hon. member spoke. The hon. member said the Leader of the Opposition was selling South African short. I think I have heard that phrase before somewhere. I want to read to the House what was said by a certain hon. member way back in 1966, just before he was dumped from Parliament. This was an Opposition member speaking to Dr. Verwoerd, who was then the Prime Minister. I quote from Hansard—

I am in good company. This was the man who said that Dr. Verwoerd was selling South Africa short in the eyes of the world. I want to suggest that he gets off that old “ramkietjie” and that he starts singing a different tune.

This debate has been overshadowed by events outside the House and outside South Africa. I am referring to the events in New York during the past weekend and to the sudden return of our Minister of Foreign Affairs. I understand the problem in the way of further negotiations and of getting in touch with the people in South West Africa, but frankly I would have hoped that by now the Government would have made a definitive statement on the situation in relation to the suspension or the breakdown in the talks. We have had a statement by the hon. the Minister from New York and we saw him putting up a very commendable television performance. He also made a brief statement in an interview with the Press on his return, but he has made no statement to this House. While I think most South Africans were distressed, I am frankly worried that there was something ominous in the air when the talks broke down. It does appear that part of the damage has been remedied and I think we are entitled to know, not about the Government’s plans for the future, but what the circumstances were. Where do the two negotiating parties stand today? Is there an agreed mechanism for reinstating the talks? Is this something which we must take on our own initiative or is it going to be left to the Western powers? We need another statement that, despite all the problems, the South African Government will do everything in its power to continue to get an internationally recognized settlement and that it will do everything in its power to see that the very healthy momentum which has developed in the direction of an internationally acceptable settlement is maintained as far as the Government is able to do so. While we do not ask the Government to tell us of their plans for the future or the discussions they intend having with the leaders in South West Africa, I believe the people of South Africa would like to know what the position is today. What were the snags, what is the situation and what are the prospects of talks being renewed with a view to a positive result?

The impression which this debate has created—and the hon. member for Durban Point referred to this—is that one cannot sense that on the other side of the House members have a serious sense of concern about the situation in which we in South Africa find ourselves today.

What nonsense!

The hon. the Prime Minister may say that, but the tenor of the debate on the other side is that there is nothing seriously wrong and that “alles sal regkom”. There does not seem to be a concern about the cycle of crises which is developing with increasing frequency and with increasing severity. What worries me even more is that we do not get the impression, and I do not think the public gets the impression, that there is any sense of urgency. There may even be an acceptance that things are wrong, but there is no sense of urgency about the need to make basic reforms and to put right those things all of us in South Africa know have to be put right. I believe there is an urgency. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister, when he replies, will spell out the strategy which he intends using to try to restore foreign investors’ confidence in South Africa. The hon. the Minister should tell us what he is going to do. It is no use simply saying that there is a problem. We want to know what the Government is going to do about it. What practical steps are the Government going to take to deal with rising unemployment? Yesterday the hon. member for Pinetown said, in a very understanding speech, that an explosive situation was developing. If this is so, I believe the hon. the Minister should tell us what he is going to do to grapple with this potentially explosive situation.

It is now almost three weeks since the House met and there has been an admission, either spoken or implied right through this House, that a serious situation developed as a result of the Biko death and the subsequent events on 19 October. This has become common cause with the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs, it has become common cause with the Department of Information, and I believe there is a general acceptance that that series of events was a setback for South Africa. Perhaps we cannot undo the damage. But five months have gone by since 13 September when Steve Biko died and so far no Minister has resigned and apparently nobody has been reprimanded or punished. There is no evidence of any change in the system or the regulations relating to detention without trial and there seems to be no appreciation of the need either to charge people or to release them with the minimum amount of delay. I believe that if the Government did these things, and did them quickly, it could undo some of the damage which has occurred as a result of those events.

Four months have gone by since 19 October when The World and The Weekend World were banned. When is this ban going to be lifted? It is four months since Mr. Percy Qoboza, the editor of The World, and Dr. Mothlana were taken into preventive detention. How much longer is this detention going to last? Surely, the sooner one can release people like this, the sooner one can ease the tensions and the pressures. By doing this we will show that we do not believe in detention without trial. But this kind of action to have an impact should be taken and should be taken quickly.

Secondly, we all have a commitment to get rid of discrimination. Once again there is no apparent sense of urgency on the side of the hon. members of the NP to fulfil this commitment, either in respect of disparity of services or just in respect of apartheid. I am sorry to say that in spite of all the good work which has been done in South West Africa in the removal of discrimination, some of the stigma which is attached to the administrating power, viz. ourselves, has as a result of apartheid been part of the cause of the difficulties in trying to resolve the problems of South West Africa. The hon. the Prime Minister can do no more good for South West Africa, and in fact for South Africa, than to stand up and say that in South Africa we shall repeal the same discriminatory laws as have been repealed by the Administrator-General in South West Africa.

The hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs put on a spirited performance the other night. I think friend and foe were impressed, until he said that we had got rid of discrimination in South West Africa. One of the questioners asked him why the same thing had not been done in South Africa and suddenly the bubble was pricked. [Interjections.] I believe there is a great deal we can do about it. I do not have the time to read out examples now, but almost every week one can read in our newspapers the evidence of petty, silly and racialistic apartheid. Time and again one reads about things such as Black managers being excluded from White areas, Black people being excluded from the Ideal Homes Show, a Black dancer being barred from the Miss South Africa finals, Coloureds, Indians and Blacks not being allowed to attend variety concerts, the beach apartheid situation in the Cape and the question of the opera house in Pretoria. What happened when we had a similar problem concerning the Nico Malan Theatre? The Administrator of the Cape Province also dilly-dallied, but at least the hon. the Leader of the House, who is also the Cape Leader of the NP, used his influence with the Administrator to put that matter right. As a consequence the Administrator opened the place to everyone. I believe the hon. the Minister of Bantu Administration and Development has a responsibility, as the Leader of the NP in the Transvaal, to speak to the Administrator of the Transvaal to see that he puts the matter of the Pretoria opera house right as well.

The Government called a snap election in order to obtain a mandate for a new constitutional dispensation for Coloureds, Indians and Whites. So far this session this matter has not been raised or debated. The hon. the Prime Minister gave a few evasive answers to questions put to him in the course of the censure debate, but one would think that the NP is ashamed of its constitutional dispensation. Surely, in view of such a mandate, the matter should be debated here. It has never been discussed. We find, however, that the Department of Information has printed tens or hundreds of thousands of little booklets called “Suid-Africa se nuwe konstitusionele plan”, “South Africa’s new constitutional plan”. In defiance of the wishes of the Coloured representatives and the leaders of the CPRC, the Department of Information is putting out what I believe is a party-political propaganda sheet. I say it is even at variance with the party propaganda that was put out by the National Party during the general election campaign. I think this is disgraceful. It does not reflect, in detail or in substance, what was put to the White voters. The hon. member for Musgrave, during the course of an earlier debate, read out what was put to the White voters by the NP in an election pamphlet. In reply to the question as to what the position would be if the Coloured people did not accept this plan, the pamphlet stated—

So they say: In other words if Coloureds do not like the constitutional plans, they can stay out. But this new pamphlet goes to great lengths to say that the plans are only a basis of negotiation. Secondly, it is well known that Coloured leaders like Mr. Sonny Leon, the leader of the Labour Party, and the members of that party have openly rejected these proposals on the basis of what they have seen. They have done that. Yet this propaganda leaflet has a heading “The reaction of the Coloured leaders” and it proceeds to give the reaction of these gentlemen to what they first saw, but it does not give their definitive stand rejecting the plans once they had considered them in detail.

Finally, it totally ignores, both in the text and in the diagram, any reference to the way in which the Parliaments will deal with matters of legislation or matters of common concern. It totally ignores that, and very well that it does, because it knows that in the end matters of common concern are going to be referred to the White Parliament to the disadvantage of both the Coloured and the Indian peoples.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 73.

Mr. Speaker, I feel sure that all parties in this House will agree with me that we have had a thorough discussion in the course of this Second Reading debate. I just want to point out that no fewer than 36 hon. members took part, 12 of whom were in fact making their maiden speeches. I do not know whether this is a record for a single debate in this House, but if it is not, it must surely be very close to one. I should therefore like to avail myself of the opportunity to congratulate whole-heartedly all the hon. members who spoke for the first time in this debate, on the speeches they made. I think one can say that all of them, without exception, will be a real asset to this House.

Mr. Speaker, you will realize that in so comprehensive a debate a number of questions and other matters are raised and that it takes time to prepare a meaningful reply to them. [Interjections.] Naturally it would be no trouble to reply in brief, because the Opposition said so little that there is not really much to reply to. However, it was not only members of the Opposition who took part. There were other members who spoke far more constructively. I want to say something about those aspects as well. The Opposition need not therefore concern themselves. I shall reply as I see fit. I do not regard the Opposition as having the monopoly in such a debate.

For that reason, Mr. Speaker, I move—

Agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, we have now reached the Third Reading of a Bill which we in these benches believe will have far-reaching effects on the South African society, particularly on the Black urban society. It is a Bill which substitutes citizenship for birth as a criterion for retaining rights long enjoyed by Africans in the urban areas if they fell into a certain category, namely into the category of section 10(1)(a) or (b) of the Urban Areas Act. Their children who would have inherited those rights will lose them if they happen to be born or who have been born after the dates of independence of the various homelands. They will lose their rights to remain in the urban areas under section 10, which I believe is something that the home-land leaders who took independence understood would be rights unaffected by the acceptance of independence. It is a Bill which lays a heavy burden on Africans, a burden additional to the economic burden on Africans who are unemployed in times of economic recession.

It is not true.

The hon. the Minister says that it is not true. I think that anybody reading the new definition of “idle” will agree that additional burdens are now placed on those Africans who find themselves unemployed and who have been unemployed for 122 days in the preceding year.

They must register, that is all.

I know that the hon. the Minister accepted an amendment at Committee Stage …

I actually introduced it.

I am sorry. That is correct. The hon. the Minister introduced an amendment which we were all glad to accept at Committee Stage, an amendment which did, to some extent, lessen the impact of the new definition of “idle”, but nevertheless leaves exposed to that definition hundreds of thousands of Africans in the urban areas. Those who are not lawfully employed fall now under much heavier penalties than they previously did, since they now can be declared idle. The hon. the Minister’s amendment, of course, makes it necessary for the man not only to be registered as a work-seeker, but he also must not have been lawfully offered work during the preceding 122 days. It does leave vulnerable to harsher penalties those Africans who are not lawfully employed, for they are excluded from the provisions of the amendment. I wonder if the hon. the Minister will not agree with me that, although it is not his intention, the refusal of a job which has been offered will bring penalties in its wake because that is the way the legislation is likely to be interpreted. I believe that there is no other reason for inserting the proviso that a man should not have been offered work during the 122 days before he is declared idle. If that were so the hon. the Minister would have left the wording of the amendment at “who is a registered workseeker”.

I foresee that someone who is a registered workseeker and who has been lawfully offered a job in a category of work which he feels he does not wish to take on is going to find himself in danger of being declared idle. Thereafter he may suffer all the penalties that apply to the declaration of a man as idle.

Then, of course, there is the third category of people. Those are the young people who normally are excluded from the category of those who can be declared idle, if they attend a registered educational institution. There are some of them who today, on account of the tempestuous times through which we are going, are temporarily not at school and may therefore find themselves drawn within the net of being declared idle. The definition of this has been very considerably widened.

All these instances lead us to believe that this is a Bill which we are certainly not able to support. I also want to say that I believe it to be a singularly ill-timed measure for the hon. the Minister to be introducing now. We would not support it at any time—I want to make that quite clear—but, I think it is particularly ill-timed for the hon. the Minister to introduce it now.

[Inaudible.]

I would support anything that lessens the burden. There are certain good features about the Bill. I agree with the hon. the Minister that one should not mention only the bad things about the Bill. There are certain clauses which we have not only accepted, but which we have supported in essence and in debate. Therefore, I admit that the Bill is not altogether bad. However, it has these overriding clauses which make it impossible for us to support it. We are therefore going to move the same amendment now that we moved at Second Reading. Firstly, I want to tell the hon. the Minister that it is not too late for him to change his mind. We cannot change our minds because we do not believe that the change at Committee Stage is sufficient to induce us to do so.

Why should we change ours? [Interjections.]

Well, if hon. members will give me a chance I shall tell them why. This is a very bad time to introduce any Bill which is going to exacerbate, for all sorts of reasons, racial animosity in South Africa. It is no good that hon. member pointing at me. It is not this side of the House which introduces, in this country, legislation which causes racial friction. The fact that we stand up and say that these measures will cause racial friction is no indication that this is the first time that the idea might have struck Africans that this Bill would have a bad effect on them. Hon. members always think that if one only did not talk about the ill effects of a Bill, they would go by unnoticed, but it is the people who are going to feel the full weight of the implementation of the measure who are fully aware of what it does to their lives.

The hon. the Minister knows better than anyone else what is going on in the urban townships today. He has made it his business to contact African leaders from the homelands, and those people have spoken to him in a forthright manner and have all expressed their satisfaction at the manner in which the hon. the Minister has received them, but the hon. the Minister knows full well that the urban areas are in turmoil at the present time. He knows that a mass of high school students have still not returned to school. He knows better than anyone what has happened to the community council elections in Soweto. They are a complete fiasco, as we warned his predecessor they would be. His predecessor, of course, never took advice from anyone and simply ploughed on with that measure in the teeth of considerable opposition from the whole of the Black urban community. He refused to meet any of the people who are the recognized, accepted leaders of the urban community. I hope very much that the new Minister who has taken on this vitally important portfolio of Bantu Administration and Development is not going to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and is not going to refuse to meet Africans because he considers that they have not been properly elected by the people of Soweto. There has been no opportunity for proper elections. The community councils were a dead letter before they were even started, and the hon. the Minister would be doing himself a great service, and the country an even greater service, if he were to persuade his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Police—and here I echo the words of my hon. leader in the debate which has just ended—to release the Committee of Ten which is the recognized leadership of the urban African people and so get around a table with them to thrash out ways and means of improving the relations between the Government of South Africa and the Africans of the urban areas. For all those reasons which I have furnished—and I do not want to go into any further detail and reiterate all the arguments we had at Second Reading—I move—

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to what was virtually a repetition of the arguments of the hon. Official Opposition in the Second Reading debate and in the Committee Stage of this Bill. Towards the end of her speech the hon. member for Houghton spoke rather wide of the mark, in my opinion, and dragged in matters which really had absolutely nothing to do with the Bill under discussion, except perhaps in the sense—and it is striking that the hon. member for Houghton never referred to this—that the homeland leaders, the true leaders of the Black people in South Africa, were in fact consulted about this legislation and that they registered their consent to the legislation. Naturally the hon. member for Houghton deemed it advisable not to refer to that, and that is why, at the end of her speech, she dragged in matters relating to other people who in her opinion, or so I deduced, should quite probably have been consulted as well.

The PFP, which is constantly trying to give the impression that it is only they who speak for the Black people of South Africa, opposed all the stages of this Bill. However, the Bill was introduced in the House with the consent of the lawfully elected leaders of the Black people of South Africa. That is why we infer—and in my opinion it is a justified inference—that the Official Opposition is not so much concerned about the true interests of the Black man in South Africa. Their principal concern is that the policy of the NP will succeed in South Africa, and they will do everything in their power to try to cast suspicion on every aspect of the actions of the Government and the hon. the Minister, not only among the Whites, because in any event their opinions do not carry much weight among the Whites, but also among the Black people of South Africa.

To refer in particular to the hon. member’s objection which is aimed chiefly at clause 3, the clause which concerns the removal of layabouts from Black residential areas, it seems to me as if the Official Opposition does not want to accept that the clause concerns layabouts, and only layabouts. They apparently refuse to accept the important amendment which the hon. the Minister introduced at the Committee Stage which puts paid to any arguments against the clause that could possibly have been raised by either the Official Opposition or the other opposition. What is the fact? We know that there is a degree of unemployment among the Black people. This also applies to the urban Black people. However, in terms of the amendment introduced by the hon. the Minister, the clause could never be interpreted to mean that it was aimed at a man who was unemployed but did in fact want to work. It is surely very clear that the effect of the amendment of the hon. the Minister is that in terms of the new definition, a man has not worked for a period of 122 days in the previous year. It is equally clear that the provisions do not apply to a man who is registered as a workseeker, but has not received an offer of work. However, that does not satisfy the hon. member. The hon. member apparently wants us to allow a man, including a man who does not want to work, to register as a workseeker and then to allow him to choose whether he wants to work or not.

I want to repeat that the clause is aimed primarily at the layabouts in our Black residential areas, layabouts who not only create a problem for the Government and the administration, but also, and in particular, create problems for the Black people in our Black residential areas, the law-abiding Black people who do their daily task in an honourable fashion. A layabout has to eat, and if he does not work he lives off the labour of other people. That is why it is essential, not primarily in the interests of the Government, but in the interests of the law-abiding citizens in our Black residential areas, that effective and positive action be taken against layabouts in the Black residential areas, and that they be removed, because they are a cancer in those societies. That is why the Black leaders who were consulted by the Government in regard to this measure, registered their agreement. In contrast to the hon. member for Houghton and the Official Opposition, the Black leaders realized that this legislation, too, was in the interests of their own people in the Black residential areas of South Africa.

To conclude, I want to refer briefly to the issue of citizenship. The Official Opposition refuses to accept that in the decades gone by and in the past decade in particular, a new dispensation has been established in South Africa. They refuse to face the fact that the Government has succeeded in establishing a new political dispensation for Black and White in South Africa. They refuse to accept the fact that alongside a White homeland, a separate homeland has been established for each individual Black nation as well. When I hear the Official Opposition discussing citizenship in that way, it calls to mind the imperial past. When we on this side of the House were advocating a South African citizenship, they and their predecessors were the people who did not want to wean themselves from the citizenship of Great Britain. It was the policy of the NP Government that we would give the people of South Africa South African citizenship, and South African citizenship only. That is history.

That is your interpretation of history, but it is totally incorrect.

It seems to me that just as the Opposition begrudged the South African people a citizenship of their own in a fatherland of their own, they also begrudge the Black man citizenship of his own father-land. They simply do not wish the Black man to have the pride which citizenship of his own fatherland entails. They want the whole world to believe that the Black man’s citizenship of his own independent fatherland is inferior in comparison with South African citizenship, just as they tried to make us believe at that time that South African citizenship was inferior in comparison with citizenship of Great Britain.

That is totally untrue!

That is why I think that we should simply accept that we and the Official Opposition hold diametrically opposing views with regard to fundamental matters in South Africa. We want every people to have its own identity and fatherland and we are making those fatherlands a reality, whereas the Official Opposition begrudges every people in South Africa an identity and fatherland of its own. That is why we can probably expect with regard to all legislation that the Official Opposition will do everything in its power to fight tooth and nail every aspect of every measure adopted by an NP Government which confirms that deep-seated difference in outlook between us and them. Fortunately, we need not concern ourselves about the Official Opposition because we know that their standpoint does not enjoy the support of Whites, and that goes for this legislation as well. In fact, Mr. Speaker—and this is still more important—they do not even enjoy the support of the Black people.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Barberton accused the Opposition, among other things, of acting as colonialists because they begrudged people the citizenship of their own fatherland. He also referred in this regard to the predecessors of hon. members of the parties on this side. Mr. Speaker, who are the real colonialists? Indeed, in practice we find that those who take away people’s citizenship and begrudge them citizenship of the country where they were born, are not the predecessors of hon. members in these benches. On the contrary. This has been done by hon. members opposite. Where are the great colonialists of the late seventies? The colonialists sit on the other side of the House and not in these benches. [Interjections.]

It is also being said that we want to make the citizenship of the Bantu inferior. However,if one sees what restrictions and disadvantages are involved in the citizenship of some of the homelands and the independent countries which were formerly part of South Africa, the shoe is on the other foot, and we certainly need not wear it. The people who make such citizenship inferior are indeed the Government of the day.

I rise merely to indicate that we in these benches will also vote against the Third Reading of the Bill. However, we want to put it very clearly that this should not be seen as support of the amendment moved by the hon. member for Houghton. We feel that the tradition of the House is such that when one comes up with an amendment requesting that a Bill be read this day six months, such an amendment should refer to legislation in regard to which no compromise can be reached. It must be legislation which involves no advantages. It must be a measure which one can fight and in regard to which one can state one’s point of view. Certain aspects of the legislation do, however, constitute an improvement. Moreover, during the Committee Stage, the hon. the Minister showed that he was prepared to accept amendments. Indeed, as a result of arguments advanced by this side of the House, he himself moved an amendment. Because that amendment does not go far enough, we are going to vote against the measure. We do not, however, associate ourselves with the motion that the Bill be read this day six months.

An amendment has been moved in regard to clause 3 and the hon. member for Barberton has indicated that in fact it only concerned layabouts. However that provision does not concern layabouts only. I am not going to repeat what was said during the Second Reading debate, but in fact the issue here is people who are employed and who are charged with being unlawfully employed. It is not only the layabout who is involved here. We therefore argue that the effect of the measure will be such that we cannot support it. Furthermore, clause 2 remains unchanged. The most dangerous aspect of that clause, of its implementation in particular, is that it creates the illusion among hon. members opposite that their policy is succeeding. Herein lies the great danger and herein lies our problem. Its implementation will induce a false sense of security among hon. members, a sense of security based on the feeling that there will no longer be Bantu in prescribed areas who have their permanent homes there, but that there will only be foreign Bantu whose homes are elsewhere. The implementation of this measure will create that false and illusory sense of security among them. In the long term the effect of the measure will be that future generations can be deprived of rights that are enjoyed now. It is clear that over the years an obsession has taken root among hon. members opposite to say: “See, we have a White South Africa and in it we have only one kind of Bantu and that is a foreign Bantu.” However, such an attitude fails to solve any problem.

†The loss of rights—which will happen in consequence of the application of this Bill— will solve no problems. On the contrary, it will create the additional problem of having permanently residing and working in so-called White South Africa, a majority of people who own no allegiance to South Africa. I have always maintained that this is a dangerous state of affairs, specially if the ultimate is reached and the whole Black population would fall in that category. The application of the Bill means that we are taking a step closer to that goal, i.e. to having a state of affairs that I regard as an ultimate disaster for South Africa. The Government believes that the problems will be solved when the situation is reached where, by definition, no Bantu resides permanently in areas outside the homelands. This impression will be gained by the application of the Bill. Once that goal is reached, however, a situation will exist that will be detrimental to the economy of the country. What we in South Africa seek, are ways and means to stabilize the South African labour supply in order to achieve greater productivity, and for that to be achieved, permanency of tenure is a prerequisite. The provisions of the Bill will, once it is implemented, have the opposite effect. Greater insecurity will exist, because the children of previous permanent urban Blacks are all to be treated as total foreigners, they will be regarded, by definition, as total foreigners. Permission to seek work in prescribed areas will take place on a strict permit basis, and all the red tape that is associated with that system will then have to apply. This will have a decided disrupting influence on the labour supply in South Africa.

I am mentioning this because apart from the political considerations—we have canvassed them before—in the practical implementation of the Bill, one will find that it will lead to serious economic disadvantages for South Africa, disadvantages which will flow from the inevitable disruptions of our labour supply.

*In his reply to the Second Reading debate the hon. the Minister said that White aliens who come to South Africa and to whom permanent residence here is granted, cannot be compared with the Bantu to whom the provisions of section 10 of the Bantu Administration Act apply. The reason he advanced was that these Whites were selected on an individual basis and that the Bantu did not undergo such a process. According to the hon. the Minister, the Bantu to whom the provisions of section 10 of the Act apply is at the same level as the White foreigner who is in the country on a work permit. We have been accused of trying to make the citizenship of the other countries appear inferior. In the light of the explanation furnished by the hon. the Minister, and in the implementation of the legislation, I ask whether it will be possible in future for a citizen of territories which formerly formed part of South Africa, to acquire permanent residence here, viz. on the same basis as the White alien. It would appear that the foreign Bantu can in fact stay here permanently as long as it is not officially recognized that he is staying here permanently. This play on words is entirely unnecessary and can only harm South Africa in the future. I include the consequences of the implementation of the legislation in this category.

It may be correct to maintain that the Bantu to whom section 10 applies is not individually selected as an immigrant, but that he proved himself as an individual in the first place is a fact that we must recognize. Apart from the fact that he could have acquired privileges if he had been born here and had lived here for an unbroken period, he could only acquire these privileges if he worked here as an individual for the same employer for 10 years or if he was employed in a certain area but by various employers for a period of 15 years. In other words, that Bantu who came to work here is also a person who originally proved himself as an individual. He was not summarily accepted as a person who was entitled thereto. I think it is most unfortunate that we should draw this type of distinction, because the effect is going to be that due to this type of legislation and its implementation, it is going to be felt that the citizenship of independent countries which formerly formed part of South Africa, is inferior to South African citizenship and the citizenship of numerous other foreign countries, White or Black. For that reason we feel that we must vote against the legislation.

Mr. Speaker, we have now reached the end of the debate on this Bill. No new arguments were raised in the Third Reading debate. I just want to give the assurance once again and repeat that the object of the Bill is a positive one in the first place, viz. to give more flexibility to the legislation in numerous respects and also to transfer in numerous respects powers presently vested in the State President to the Legislative Assemblies of the various homelands. The Bill introduces a whole number of alleviating and extenuating circumstances. This is the chief characteristic of the Bill. There are two clauses which the Official Opposition does not like. I consider it an incorrect application of the practices of this House to express the strongest condemnation of the Bill saying at the same time that the Bill also contains many positive aspects. As I know the tradition of the House, a motion that a Bill be read this day six months is regarded as the strongest form of condemnation. In the past it was usually reserved only for legislation with which the Opposition wanted nothing to do, when they did not want to have anything to do with a single clause. It is paramount to total condemnation.

No.

This has been the tradition over the years. I do not know whether a new tradition has developed in the meantime. I accept that some hon. members feel very strongly about two specific clauses; hence the motion before this House, and I must reply to it.

In the first instance I want to give the assurance—I have already made myself very clear on this—that the main consideration for the provisions relating to citizenship as set out in clause 2, is that we cannot perpetuate the rights which exist for all times without having any control over them. We are not guilty in any respect of a breach of faith with anyone with whom we have negotiated to date. We are complying to the letter with all our undertakings, and I want to repeat that the legislation was submitted to all the leaders of the homelands and that there was no objection to clauses 2 and 3. I repeat this as it has evidently not made any impression on hon. members up to now.

The hon. member for Durban Central also spoke about the question of citizenship. I want to put it to him that the citizenship of Black homelands is not being made inferior in any way in terms of this legislation. On the contrary, the citizenship of Black homelands which have become independent, is full and equal citizenship. We recognize such citizenship in all respects, to the extent that a citizen of an independent homeland can act in his own right just as a total alien can. Over and above that full and equal citizenship we still give special preference to the “family of nations” in South Africa by giving them certain special privileges which are not available to aliens from outside. Looking at it from the normal point of view, they receive more than full and equal citizenship. However, this is not accepted by hon. members on the other side and is condemned simply because it does not suit them. That is why the NRP will vote against this specific measure.

I just want to refer once again to the unemployment clause, or the clause on layabouts. How many times do I still have to give the assurance that we are dealing here with bona fide layabouts, people who create problems, and that we want to take action against them? I revealed my attitude and precisely what the department had in mind in the amendment I moved. We do not want to interfere with a genuine work-seeker in any way. However, hon. members say that the scope of the amendment is not wide enough. In other words, they wanted the amendment to provide purely and simply …

[Inaudible.]

I am not taking action in any event against those who are working. Can the hon. member imagine for a single moment anyone who is employed, even if that person was employed illegally, being removed from his employment in terms of these provisions and being labelled not only as an unemployed person, but also as a person who is work-shy, a layabout, against whom action may be taken in terms of these provisions and who may be deported or rehabilitated? Surely this is ridiculous! It is not stated in the clause. It is not necessary to take action in terms of this provision against a person who is employed illegally, because there are enough other provisions in terms of which we can take action. This matter is not at issue now. I say in all fairness that the hon. member has missed the point completely. Surely I cannot, in terms of other legislation, condone people who are illegally employed in terms and close my eyes to it. That man is definitely not considered to be work-shy or a layabout in terms of this amending Bill. However, he is nevertheless illegally employed and action can therefore be taken against him and his employer in terms of the normal provisions. A form of control must surely be exercised, or does the hon. member want to throw open the doors and say that things must take their course? It is inconceivable that the Government or anyone else would take away the employment of a person who is employed, whether legally or illegally, declare him unemployed, work-shy or a layabout and take action against him in terms of these provisions. Surely this is inconceivable. Mr. Speaker, in the previous debate you quite correctly made an hon. member withdraw his remark that these people were aligning themselves with the enemies of South Africa. These people are playing, perhaps unwittingly …

Are you referring to hon. members now or to other people?

I am referring to some hon. members of the Opposition now. They are playing into the hands of our enemies, possibly unwittingly, or possibly not so unwittingly.

It is your legislation!

I am glad that the hon. the Chief Whip of the PFP has made that interjection, because he is the one that I have a bone to pick with. I have here an article by the hon. member which appeared in The Argus of 10 February 1978. It deals with these two Bills. It is an old trick of the Official Opposition, when there is something in this country which they do not like, to give it a catchy name which spreads throughout the whole world like wild-fire as it rolls off the tongue so easily. For example, the hon. member for Houghton said in her speech that we had made unemployment a crime. The hon. member for Groote Schuur wrote the following in his article—

In plain English I want to say that this is an infamous lie.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Minister permitted to say it is a lie.

Mr. Speaker, those words were not uttered here in this House. He merely quoted words from a magazine.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: The hon. the Minister is referring to words used by the hon. the Chief Whip. Those are the words. Therefore he is saying that the hon. the Chief Whip of the Opposition is guilty of an infamous lie or of publishing an infamous lie. That is not parliamentary, by anybody’s norm.

Order! Hon. members are placing me in a difficult position. It concerns a matter which took place outside the House. But the person who uttered those words in an article is a member of the House. The hon. the Minister now tells that hon. member inside the House: You told an infamous lie.

Outside the House!

Yes, it does not matter whether it is outside the House or not. The hon. the Minister uses very strong language. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can put it differently and I want to ask him to moderate his language. If the hon. the Minister were to say that it is totally untrue, he would be saying the same thing. Therefore he must withdraw the words “infamous lie.”

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. the Minister …

Order! I am sorry, but I have given my ruling. You have addressed me and I have given my ruling, right or wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I respect your ruling. I feel very strongly about this matter. I considered taking stronger action than I did in fact take. I considered appointing a Select Committee.

Why do you not?

Why do I not?

I would welcome it.

Mr. Speaker, I respect your decision and merely as a result of that and for no other reason I withdraw it and say instead that I think it is an untruth. I do not think so; I know it is an untruth.

Why do you not say it is a lie outside the House?

I know it is an untruth. This provision as it stands at present, especially after the amendment which was introduced, expressly provides that if one is registered as a work-seeker and one is then offered employment in the course of events, as soon as an opportunity arises … surely it is an injustice towards South Africa to broadcast a report—this is what is happening now—that in a time of financial problems as far as the world outside is concerned, the Government has turned unemployment, which one is not guilty of and cannot do anything about, into an offence for which one is punished. I think it is a scandalous action towards South Africa. It is unpatriotic; it is a scandalous action towards South Africa, and I think the hon. member should consider whether he should be a member of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I want to leave this point by just saying that I do not have language strong enough or harsh enough to condemn that action. There is not much more to say in connection with this matter. I have already dealt with the other provisions in terms of which we can take action against anyone who is on the wrong side of the law. I have already referred to it during the Second Reading and I repeat it now; I should like to highlight it because it seems to have made no impression. One of the reasons why we are providing for this specific action is that we are dealing with layabouts who live on others by means of robbery and theft. I am spelling it out now without mincing matters. This is the type of person who is the cause of the problems in the urban residential areas. They are the ones who are 90% responsible for the things which happen there.

[Inaudible.]

These are the very people that I declare layabouts. How does the hon. member define them within the purview of the legislation? Why did the hon. member not move an amendment and define it? The old definition could be interpreted in such a way as to give a magistrate or a Bantu Affairs Commissioner much wider powers. “Normally unemployed” is as wide as can be. If a man is “normally unemployed”, what does it mean in practice? We felt that we wanted to define it more closely. We do not want to make it any stronger; we want to define it so that no doubt exists. And that is why it is defined as it is here. My amendment to it tried to improve the matter even further. However, there is no appreciation or understanding for it. Unfortunately, this determines one’s attitude towards the Opposition. I repeat: What are we dealing with here? I said at the Second Reading, and I want to repeat it now, that it has been done at the request, inter alia, of people who deal with it every day. Once again I read the quotation from the minutes where two members of the board concerned—

The whole board decided—

Surely this is serious. It concerns the public. It concerns the authorities. It concerns the whole community—

Here co-operation is being offered to the police, help to get rid of these people. Now, when I introduce legislation to clamp down on those very people, that hon. member writes to the outside world: “The Government is making unemployment in South Africa a crime.”

It refers to hooligans.

Yes, I quite understand that. I think they were referring to the hon. member. That is my problem with the hon. member. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, is the hon. the Minister permitted to refer to another hon. member as a hooligan? [Interjections.]

Order!

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to make it difficult for you. I withdraw it.

Yes. Even though you did not mean it seriously, I am pleased that you have withdrawn it.

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to make it difficult for you. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Groote Schuur is an old parliamentarian. He was in the Senate for a long time. However, I want to warn him that if he is going to act in this House the way he is acting now, he will very soon realize that he will have every hon. Minister to deal with, every single one of them. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I want to conclude by saying that I think this is a necessary Bill. I think that this Bill has so many positive aspects that it is in the interests of all for it to be passed. The aspects of this legislation which are considered by the hon. the Opposition to be negative are essential in the present circumstances in order to clamp down on real layabouts and in order to place the whole question of citizenship in the correct perspective. Since this is the crux of the legislation, I ask that the Bill now be read a Third Time.

Question put: That the word “now” stand part of the Question,

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—113: Albertyn, J. T.; Ballot, G. C.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, C. J. van R.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, L. J.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, S. P.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; 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, G. C.; Durr, K. D.; Durrant, R. B.; Du Toit, J. P.; Grobler, J. P.; Hartzenberg, F.; Hefer, W. J.; Henning, J. M.; Herman, F.; Heunis, J. C.; Heyns, J. H.; Horn, J. W. L.; 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, W. C. (Paarl); Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Marais, J. S.; Marais, P. S.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Myburgh, G. B.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nortje, J. H.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Olckers, R. de V.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, S. P.; Pretorius, N. J.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schutte, D. P. A.; Scott, D. 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, W. L.; 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 Vuuren, J. J. M. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.; Wessels, L.

Tellers: S. F. Kotzé, J. P. A. Reyneke, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda, J. A. van Tonder and V. A. Volker.

Noes—24: Bartlett, G. S.; Basson, J. D. du P.; Dalling, D. 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.; Oldfield, G. N.; Page, B. W. B.; Pyper, P. A.; Raw, W. V.; Schwarz, H. H.; 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 Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, although the hon. the Minister told us during the Second Reading debate that other legislation would be forthcoming from his colleagues the hon. the Minister of the Interior to regulate the position of South African citizens who have lost their South African citizenship as a result of homeland independence, we see this Bill for what it is, and that is that it is in itself the result of former South African citizens having lost their South African citizenship as a result of homeland independence. I am also aware that the hon. the Minister’s colleague gave notice this afternoon of the legislation which the hon. the Minister foreshadowed during the Second Reading debate. The effect of the Bill before the House at present, however, will be to establish machinery to enable certain of these people who have been deprived of their citizenship to regain their South African citizenship in certain circumstances. This is the sort of benefit to be conferred on such people.

The hon. the Minister has, however, been at pains, in his earlier remarks on this legislation, to make it quite clear that the intention is that its operation will be very limited. Its operation will be limited, we know, to certain individuals on compassionate grounds, but the hon. the Minister has also stated that its operation will include, perhaps, the transfer of tribes from an independent homeland to a non-independent homeland. In addition the terms of the Bill lay down the procedure that must be followed by any former South African citizen seeking to regain his South African citizenship, and as such it presents a number of hazards which have to be overcome before regaining his South African citizenship. We know that the individual concerned is being asked to apply to a non-independent homeland for citizenship or admission. We know that he has to be accepted by that non-independent homeland, and that that acceptance must then be recommended to the hon. the Minister. We also know that the Bill provides that the hon. the Minister may then, in his discretion, decide whether or not to grant such citizenship to the person concerned. It is therefore a very limited operation, and certainly a very far cry from what we on this side of the House believe the position should be in respect of those people in South Africa who have lost their citizenship as a result of homeland independence.

Our attitude is that such a person, having lost his South African citizenship, should be able to regain his citizenship as a right if he is still resident in the Republic of South Africa. We clearly stated that during the Second Reading debate.

Is it still automatic?

If he is resident in the Republic of South Africa and has lost his citizenship as a result of homeland independence, we believe that such a person should be able to regain that citizenship as a right.

How do you define South Africa?

We say that somebody must be permanently resident in South Africa.

What are the borders of South Africa? Are the independent homelands included?

No, we are speaking about South Africa without the independent homelands.

After independence?

Yes. We believe that that is the position that should obtain with regard to these people who, without any say, have been deprived of their South African citizenship. This Bill, when it is implemented, will be a very far cry from that situation because this Bill will place the persons involved at the mercy of a non-independent homeland, because they can only get back their citizenship via a non-independent homeland, at the mercy of the hon. the Minister or at the mercy of both. We believe that it would have been easier for Parliament to have examined what the hon. the Minister is trying to achieve in this Bill if this Bill had come after the Bill which is apparently going to be introduced by the hon. the Minister of the Interior. Since that Bill, from what one knows of it, is apparently going to be more comprehensive and far-reaching than this measure, it is a pity that this Bill did not follow that Bill. We are left with the situation where we cannot know to what extent the Government is prepared to meet the very well grounded grievance of people who have been deprived of their South African citizenship as a result of homeland independence. In those circumstances I move as an amendment—

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in the position of having to apologize to the hon. member for Musgrave. In the first place I must apologize because I over-estimated him. In the second place I must apologize because I thought that he had more insight than he showed in this debate after he heard the explanations which the hon. the Minister gave during the Committee Stage and the Second Reading. In the meantime the hon. member for East London North has also expressed certain sentiments, viz. that the Bill can be seen as a starting point from which those people who have, according to them, been wronged—of course we deny this—are at least given a means of rectifying the matter. I apologize for thinking that the hon. member for Musgrave would have the insight to see this at least. However, the hon. member did not even make use of that loophole. That is why I apologize for thinking that he had so much insight.

As we have already said, this Bill is a logical consequence of the existing subsection (2) of section 3. That section already makes provision for the transfer or exchange of citizenship from one territorial authority area to another. The criterion there is domicile of at least five years. Therefore it is logical that when independent fatherlands come into being, we should create the possibility, in the place of subsection (2), for exchanging citizenship from an independent fatherland to a self-governing territory within the Republic.

The hon. the Minister also explained that we have compassionate cases here which must be considered. He asked the Official Opposition how they thought compassionate cases should be handled; as regards the compassionate cases themselves, but also as regards the outside world. However, the Opposition does not want to leave a loophole for handling the compassionate cases. The only conclusion one can come to is that as with many of these matters, they themselves will gloat if there should be trouble. They want to oppose the removal of a troublesome bottleneck because a platform is being removed from under their feet. This is the case here. That is why we are not accused before the world this time, but we are up before the world because we want to deal with this type of case in a way which will not cause any inconvenience for the people concerned. For instance, the hon. the Minister referred to the case of a Qwaqwa woman who wanted to marry a Transkei citizen and settle in the Qwaqwa territory, and the case of a Tswana woman who married a Qwaqwa citizen after which they wanted to settle in Qwaqwa. As far as this is concerned, we have not received any reply from the Opposition, while the effect of this legislation will in fact be that similar cases may be dealt with.

Fundamentally, this is based on the internationally recognized principle of citizenship by naturalization. It is not strange for an Italian who comes to live here to obtain citizenship through naturalization or that in due course naturalization can be obtained after a marriage. We are also working with well-known concepts. The Black people had the custom that individuals belonging to one tribe could obtain citizenship of another tribe by the payment of a certain sum of money known as the “lotcha” in respect of the one group and the “konza” in respect of another. How many people in their own areas does this affect today? Possibly 8 million or even more. Does the hon. member want to tell us that they do not know about this? I take it that they do not know about it. I also take it that these customs are totally unknown to them.

The other two grounds for obtaining citizenship are birth and descent. It is very clear that the birth factor is excluded here because citizenship of a self-governing territory within the Republic of South Africa can only be obtained if this person was a citizen of the RSA before the independence of the homeland concerned. We say outright that citizenship is only available in this way to people who were born here before the independence date. Therefore citizenship cannot be obtained by birth after independence. If we analyse the amendment of the hon. member and look at his argument, it is clear that he is not taking the date of independence into consideration.

Although he refers to individuals domiciled within the Republic, his argument and his amendment are so widely stated as also to include people who are domiciled outside the Republic and were in fact born after the date of independence. If we look at the argument of the hon. member for Houghton, we find the same motive present there.

Therefore, we find that the question of ethnicity and a violation of this principle were not at issue here at all and this is proved by the customs to which I referred and by the fact that we are dealing with individual cases here and not with the masses. We are dealing with the exception and not with the masses. The PFP brought up the argument of ethnicity as well as many other arguments because they wanted to use the amendment to the Bill as a lever whereby to force their policy on the RSA. Secondly, it would have had the effect, for example, that citizens of Bophuthatswana and the Transkei would be deprived of their citizenship. We have not had any reply to this argument either. If we take the result of their amendment into consideration, it is clear that they took a few hours to tell us that every present citizen of Bophuthatswana, including those born after 6 December 1977, and those at present domiciled inside or outside Bophuthatswana, may decide unilaterally to take South African citizenship, unconditionally and without fundamental formalities, regardless of the interests of Bophuthatswana and without consulting the Government of Bophuthatswana in the matter. This is what they really said after having argued for hours.

Other factors which influence the situation as well as the point of view of the PFP, are the fact that they want to convey an image to the outside world of not recognizing the independence of these fatherlands. They advanced this argument last year, but an argument like this is naïve in view of the reality. That is why, after the hon. member for Pinelands admitted in the House during the Committee Stage that they accepted the full independence of the fatherlands Bophuthatswana and Transkei, it is incomprehensible that they came up with an amendment like this one which they moved during the Third Reading of the Bill. That is why I beg the hon. member’s pardon for the degree of insight which I thought he had. How on earth, after recognizing the independence of those areas, can one move an amendment which implies that the Government can deprive citizens of another country of their citizenship by means of a single unilateral decision, without imposing any conditions?

These are citizens who live in the Republic.

How can one do this even as regards the citizens domiciled here? How on earth can one allege, on the one hand, that one recognizes the independence of the fatherlands as one recognizes that of Israel and England, and on the other hand, in a matter like this, deprive them of half their citizens with a single stroke of the pen? This is the result of the hon. member’s point of view. Another result of his point of view is that the hon. member states that the citizenship of these people, even those who are domiciled in the Republic, is an inferior citizenship. Will the hon. member agree that I am correct? Will the hon. member agree that what his argument amounts to is that he is of the opinion that the citizenship of Bophuthatswana is inferior and that he finds fault with the Bill because provision is not made for the group as a whole? This is in fact a flagrant insult to these people. Let us go further. The PFP were asked if they were of the opinion that the group which their amendment applied to, was stateless. I ask the hon. member for Musgrave once again: Is he of the opinion that those people whom his amendment concerns, are stateless?

They live here in South Africa; they are South Africans.

Are you of the opinion that they are stateless? The hon. member argues that they were deprived of their citizenship by independence and now I ask him whether he thinks that they are stateless.

The hon. member for Musgrave should just as well call in legal assistance now that certain virginally artless remarks have been made. I think that we should now be able to expect solutions from that source. Does the hon. member for Musgrave consider citizenship of the Republic superior to citizenship of Bophuthatswana? The hon. member does not want to answer my question. [Interjections.] The situation is becoming impossible now. Let us look at any category of Bantu that can be affected by the Bill or amendment; whether it be the compassionate cases or the other cases as a group, which could concern us here. I am referring to the people who are affected by the amendment of the hon. member for Musgrave. Are they not being placed in the same position as the position in which they were before the date of independence? Has the hon. member thought out this possibility? Are they not being placed in precisely the same position? If one takes note of the wording of the clause, one finds that citizenship of the specific territorial authority area plus citizenship of South Africa is acquired. The hon. member concedes that. In other words, they are placed in precisely the same position as the one in which they were previously. What did they have before? They had citizenship according to international law which had international significance. This is precisely what we are enacting here. They also had citizenship in accordance with the constitutional law of the particular territorial authority area or self-governing territory as well as citizenship of South Africa with its concomitant rights and obligations. I want to emphasize that they also had the concomitant rights and obligations. This is what is stated in the clause. If the rights are precisely the same as those which they had, what, then, is the hon. member’s objection to a groups of people obtaining this sort of citizenship? Does he think it is an inferior situation and if so, why then does he want to keep them in the Republic? Why does the hon. member want to keep other citizens of self-governing territories within the Republic and why is he a disciple of anti-independence?

I considered the hon. member to be an expert in these matters, but he has disappointed me and therefore forced me to apologize to him—I want to say it once again—because I over-estimated him entirely.

Mr. Speaker, we in these benches—I may say that it is nice to be able to say “we in these benches” after the Committee Stage of this particular Bill— agree to an extent with what the hon. member for Musgrave said, that is that South Africans have lost citizenship in South Africa through no fault of their own; that, despite the fact that they continue to live within our borders, they have, as I have said earlier, willy-nilly lost their South African citizenship. We certainly totally disagree with this concept, but I must admit that the attitude of the PFP towards this Bill totally mystifies us. What does the Bill do? The Bill gives rights to Blacks which they have not up to now had. Those who had lost their citizenship had no means of getting it back. At least there is now a route they can take, and the Bill does provide that additional route by which they can regain their “section 10” rights.

In the Third Reading debate of the previous Bill, the hon. member for Houghton said that she would do anything to improve the situation. I submit, with respect, that this legislation does improve the situation. I agree that it does not go far enough, but it does bring about an improvement in that these people will in terms of the Bill be able to get their “section 10” rights back.

For how long?

It will only be temporarily.

“For how long”; “temporarily”—at one stage the Official Opposition suggested that it was totally meaningless. It is effective for as long as there is one Bantu homeland which has not taken its independence. Let us put ourselves in the situation of a Transkeian Xhosa who lives, shall we say, in a portion of the Zulu homeland, kwaZulu. He is a man who has lost his South African citizenship and who now, because he lives with the Zulus, may be able to persuade the Government of kwaZulu to accept him as a citizen of that homeland, and the hon. the Minister might therefore be persuaded to accept him again as a South African citizen. How pleased do hon. members think he would be with the Official Opposition who want to deny him this right? It is meaningful to him and it might be meaningful to him for quite a long time; it will be meaningful for as long as the homelands are prepared to grant citizenship to these people, as long as the hon. the Minister is prepared to allow them to have their South African citizenship back again and as long as there is one remaining homeland.

In the case you mentioned he would not get his “section 10” rights back; he lives in kwaZulu.

This is the effect the Bill will have, but the PFP say it is meaningless. However, I believe that in proposing the amendment they have moved, they are in fact standing in the way of Black people who would like to regain South African citizenship.

But you voted for the same amendment at second reading.

I do not think that there can be any argument against this point of view whatsoever. One must now ask oneself for what reason the PFP is opposing a measure which is going to restore rights to the Blacks whom they are always trying to help.

It is a farce!

It is not a farce, or meaningless. If one Black man regains his South African citizenship through this Bill, it will not have been a farce. What reason can the PFP have for proposing an amendment that the House decline to pass the Bill? I can think of one reason only. I can only think that it is the idle and vainglorious posturing of a slick, professional pressure group.

Hear, hear! I like that!

Yes, I enjoyed that enormously. [Interjections.] I believe that this is straight confrontation politics; it is not opposition and it is certainly not effective opposition. In conclusion I should like to make the comment that although the NRP’s amendment on the previous Bill was rejected, the Government’s amendment, in fact, accomplished virtually the selfsame thing. I submit that that is “effective”.

Mr. Speaker, what interests me, is the definition of “opposition” by the hon. member who has just sat down. He spent his entire time addressing the Opposition Party on his right but did not say a word to the hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House. This is part of a trend. We are accustomed to that and have been accustomed to it for a long time.

I should just like to ask the hon. member for East London North one question. If he feels so strongly about this, how did he and his colleagues bring themselves to vote for the exact same amendment to the Second Reading? Their minds were consequently changed between the Second and the Third Reading of the Bill. No amendment was moved in the Committee Stage.

An amendment was moved at Second Reading.

No, there was not. There was only one amendment and that was the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave, an amendment for which that hon. member voted. In spite of the fact that nothing has changed whatsoever, he now says that he is totally in favour of this Bill.

I now want to deal with the Government which moved the Third Reading of this Bill. I want to tell the hon. member for Bloemfontein West that he really ought to have read the amendment before he made his prepared speech. If he had done that, his comments would have been very different. They were quite funny and humorous while he was making them, but really and truly he said nothing about this amendment. I very briefly want to emphasize that firstly it is true—it has been stated in the Second Reading debate and in the Committee Stage, and I personally stated it—that the reality of independent countries like Transkei and Bophuthatswana cannot be turned away from. This is a reality which we said then and which we say now that we accept. Secondly, I want to emphasize that we do not belittle the citizenship of either of those two territories. We have said that in the Committee Stage. Thirdly, we have said—and it seems that it needs to be said again in this Third Reading debate—that there is ample precedent, when a country surrenders part of its sovereignty to another newly-formed country, for it to give the citizens of that newly-formed country the choice about their own citizenship. That is the matter we are seeking to underline here. We are not talking about wholesale rights for people who have never enjoyed citizenship of South Africa. This amendment makes it absolutely clear. This Bill fails to give to permanent residents …

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he is aware of the fact that Bophuthatswana is already independent? The option which is the object of his plea should therefore have been available last year, but we are dealing with a different situation now. Does he admit that?

I expected a question, not a speech. It is quite true, of course. We are at least consistent. When we argued against the giving of independence last year, we took exactly the same point we are taking now. It is only that hon. member who seems to have changed his mind. However, because of this precedent and because we believe people ought to have been given that opportunity, we still believe that. This Bill only legislates for exceptions, and very, very few exceptions at that. It was rather amusing to listen to the hon. member for East London North when he tried to make as much political capital as he could out of this by talking about “if this happens” and “perhaps if that happens” and “it may be this” and “and it may be that” and then there might be one lone citizen somewhere who gains some benefit. The hon. the Minister was much more honest. He made it very clear that he was doing this for every exceptional cases. And he spelt it out. We agree that that is right, but because this is playing with a large number of people who are denied the choice, we are not prepared to lend respectability to it. That is the reason why we have consistently opposed this Bill at the Second Reading, the Committee Stage and now and why I support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave.

Mr. Speaker, I rise solely to reply to the question put to me as to why we adopt an attitude at the Third Reading different from that which we adopted at the Second Reading. Perhaps I can give the hon. member an elementary lesson in parliamentary procedure.

You were not even here.

I happen to know what happened. At the Second Reading, before the principle was established, we supported the extension of this Bill to provide a wider concession to those who had lost citizenship. We supported the concept that the right to regain citizenship was something desirable, and we voted for it. This House rejected that amendment, accepted the principle of the Bill and accepted the Bill in the Committee Stage. We are now, at Third Reading, therefore presented with the Bill as it is. We are presented at this stage with a principle already accepted. And that principle is incorporated in this Bill. We now look at the Bill as it is, not as we would like to see it, not as we would have drafted it, but as it is before the House and approved in principle. The hon. member for Houghton this very afternoon said she would do anything in her power to improve the position of any Black person. [Interjections.]

Loud mouth (“groot bek”).

Now here is a Bill which improves the position of some Black people. As it happens, it improves the position of one of my own employees.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member permitted to refer to another hon. member as a braggart (“grootbek”)?

What did the hon. member say?

I said “loud mouth”.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw those words.

I withdraw.

Mr. Speaker, it is not necessary to guess which hon. member he was referring to. [Interjections.] I now wish to repeat what I was saying. The hon. member for Houghton accepts that if one can improve the position of anyone one should do so. This Bill does not achieve what we would like it to achieve. But we are not going to cut off our noses to spite our faces because we did not get everything we wanted. I want to make it quite clear that our attitude in Parliament throughout will be that if a matter improves the situation, even though it does not do it our way, or does not go as far as we would like it to, if it makes anything better than it used to be, if it improves the situation, then we shall support it. We have made that clear, and we stand by that procedure even though it might not be how we would like to see it. We are not going to refuse or oppose something of benefit for any sector of our people simply because it does not conform to exactly how we would like to see the situation. We are not going to oppose any measure which brings a benefit or improves a situation, particularly of the other races, because it does not go as far as we would like it to go. This measure deals only with a few people, but it is an improvement; it is a concession to those few people. Unlike the Official Opposition we are not prepared to say we are going to vote against an improvement for some people and it is just too bad for them. They want to show how tough they are, and in order to show how tough they are, they are going to vote against the interests of Black people because it does not go as far as they would like it to go. That is why, having voted at Second Reading in an attempt to broaden the scope of the Bill, having supported an amendment and having failed to get the broadened scope, we support what we are now faced with—the reality before us. In fact, I do not want to question the rules but I have always understood that at Third Reading we should deal with the contents of a Bill as they are. This amendment does not refer to the contents of this Bill at all. It has no reference whatsoever to the contents of this Bill. It is a reference to what the Official Opposition would like to see in this Bill. It does not refer to what is in the Bill. We are voting in favour of what is in the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, if ever anyone wants to look for a broadening of anything at all, there could not be a better one than the hon. member for Durban Point to look for such a broadening. [Interjections.]

Thank you very much! [Interjections.]

However, I want to tell the hon. member for Durban Point…

We have aged together, Helen.

Well, some of us age better than others, I must say. [Interjections.]

And she has aged rather well, has she not? [Interjections.]

I think we should leave the personal remarks to one side. It is a pity the hon. member for Durban Point was not in the House when the Bill was argued.

I was here!

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Durban Point was not here during the Second Reading debate.

He was here!

Was he indeed? Well, if he was here during Second Reading that makes it even worse, because he has now done a complete turnabout. In his argument now …

Just read my Hansard!

It is bad enough to have to listen to the hon. member without having to read his Hansard afterwards. However, the point I want to make is that this Bill does not do what it purports to do, and by the NRP voting for this Bill, as I presume they are going to do at Third Reading, they are giving it a measure of respectability which it does not deserve. They are helping to raise the hopes of Africans to believe that because one of the opposition parties supports this, especially with the words that have been used, this will open the door …

… to some, a few people.

Well, to some.

To some.

To a few, as the hon. member has said. They will give the impression that the much longed for reacquisition of South African citizenship is now going to be open to all those hundreds of thousands, all those millions of Black people

What nonsense!

… who lost their citizenship when the Transkei and Bophuthatswana gained their independence.

Why do you not read what the Bill purports exactly?

No, Sir, it is the words of the hon. members of the NRP that are completely misleading. This is the narrowest of possible ways for the fewest of possible people.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether it is a concession to some people?

I do not know. It may be. I doubt it, however. I doubt it because the hon. the Minister says himself … [Interjections.]

Why do you not read the Bill?

I have read the Bill. I have debated the Bill. However, the hon. the Minister has made his intentions clear. He may allow, for temporary reasons only—and it will be temporary—a few people to regain citizenship, not in order to regain section 10 rights, but in order perhaps to go and live somewhere else in some other part of the country with a marriage partner of a different ethnic group. He may allow that.

Well, that is temporary.

Of course, it is temporary, because the hon. the Minister said that by the time he had finished there would not be a single Black person left with South African citizenship.

How long will that take?

The hon. the Minister and the hon. the Prime Minister both put it at five years.

That means five years of citizenship.

Well, five years of citizenship then, five years of living in kwaZulu with a Ciskei woman.

Do you not want to do the right thing today?

Yes, but I do not think this is doing the right thing. I think that this, as I say, is putting a stamp of respectability on a farcical measure. That is what it is. It is a farcical measure. Therefore, as far as we are concerned, the arguments … They may have been advanced in all sincerity. I do not question the sincerity. One looks at the Bill asking whether it is the sort of Bill that one can possibly support. One sees that maybe a few people may benefit from it. However, I believe one has to remember the overall effect of supporting a measure like this and therefore giving the impression—a false impression—that many people will be able to regain citizenship rights through it.

What is wrong with what is in the Bill?

I shall be very interested to hear how many people this time next year, or this time two years, will have regained their citizenship as a result of this Bill. I shall put a question in the course of time to the hon. the Minister and I hope he will be able to support the arguments which those hon. members have advanced. If that is the case, I shall be the first to say that I was wrong. That, however, is something I do not often do.

Mr. Speaker, we had the interesting phenomenon this afternoon of the two Opposition parties being at logger-heads with one another about a Bill. They actually conducted a discussion themselves. I think we had a very good example this afternoon of the Official Opposition being on the run. Since the NRP has now associated itself with the Bill, I think it is only a question of time or insight before the Official Opposition sees the light.

I agree completely with the action of the NRP. They have also seen the light now and consequently they are going to vote in favour of the Bill. I also agree with their moving an amendment during the Second Reading debate …

You are trying to distort what we said.

… and that, when they could not get what they wanted, they accepted what they thought was second best. I have no fault to find with this.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is an hon. member allowed to say that another hon. member “distorts” words?

Order! The hon. member for Durban Point must withdraw that statement.

Mr. Speaker, I said the hon. member “tries to distort”.

The hon. member must rather withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Sir.

Are you now whipping for the Nats? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I think the Official Opposition failed in another respect too. They did not stick to the Bill before the House. They harped on the regaining of citizenship the whole afternoon, but basically the subject of the Bill is not the regaining of citizenship. The Bill concerns something completely different. Why is a person concerned about his citizenship?

Order! May I suggest that if the hon. member for Houghton wants to have a private conversation with the hon. member for Durban Point, she should make an appointment for tonight? [Interjections.]

After the exchange this afternoon, I should like to see who would come off best from that appointment tonight. [Interjections.]

As I said, the Bill does not basically concern the regaining of citizenship, nor the regaining of South African citizenship. It concerns something else. Why is one concerned about one’s citizenship? In the first place, one is concerned about it in order to protect one’s interests. However, one is also concerned about it in order to obtain rights in a certain State. Of course, there are also many other additional reasons for being concerned about it.

The amendment contained in the Bill is only to the advantage of the people who live in that State. As was pointed out in the Second Reading debate, the amendment has been made for humanitarian reasons. The intention is to meet the people concerned halfway. There is absolutely nothing sinister about the Bill. The mistake which the Opposition is making is to read something into the Bill which is not to be found there at all.

In terms of the Bill, the decision rests with the citizen himself as to whether he wants to accept citizenship of another territorial authority area or not. If it holds better advantages for him, he can exercise the choice in order to accept such citizenship. The hon. member for Durban Point also pointed out that if such citizenship will be to the greater advantage of a person, he may apply for it. There are various reasons why it may be of greater advantage to him. Reference has already been made to family ties. There are also other reasons such as business considerations. Someone may have a chain of businesses in a territorial authority area and that is why he may choose rather to accept the citizenship of that area. Therefore, we want to leave the door open for him to apply for it. Obviously, even an undesirable person may apply for citizenship of a specific territorial authority area. If his application is successful, he will automatically obtain citizenship of the Republic too. Of course, it is obvious that the application of an undesirable person will not be granted lightly. On the contrary, we should then have to scrutinize it very carefully before it is granted. Of course there is no such thing as dual citizenship. A person may not regain citizenship of the Republic and then retain citizenship of another country too. This is being harped on the whole time. One can only obtain citizenship of one country and not have any other citizenship in addition. If one takes a look at the elections held in the Transkei and Bophuthatswana and at the people in those areas who voted, as well as at the large number of people outside those areas who also made use of their franchise, one must believe that citizenship of those States means a great deal to the people concerned and that they are also concerned about their citizenship just as any other person is. The franchise forms a major part of one’s citizenship. One applies for citizenship because one also wants to have a say in a specific area. That is why we are making it easier for people to choose in which State they want to exercise their citizenship.

I say once again that I think the Official Opposition has not been talking about this Bill at all. They read things into this Bill which do not exist there at all. However, I am pleased that the NRP has now seen the light and is going to support this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have heard nothing from the Opposition in the course of this debate to which I need reply. Although the matter is very clear, I must point out a few things.

In the first place, this Bill concerns citizenship of the territorial authority areas, homeland areas or fatherland areas, whatever we prefer to call them. This is quite clear from the long title of the Bill if we would only read it. I just want to quote it—

In other words, the crux of the matter is not South African citizenship, about which the Official Opposition is making all the fuss. It is not about that in the first place. It is about the regaining of citizenship of an existing non-independent fatherland territory in South Africa. That is the crux. The amendment about South African citizenship is, said in all friendliness, really a riddle to me at this stage.

Let me make the picture clear. In my Second Reading speech I said the purpose of this was, among other things, to assist in compassionate cases. I also mentioned some of the cases. I said; suppose a man from Transkei was married to a woman from the Ciskei, a situation which could easily happen in practice. They would then be Transkeian citizens, because the citizenship of the husband is decisive. Suppose, however, that that couple, for whatever reason, wanted citizenship of the Ciskei.

How would we handle that situation? Suppose a Sotho woman were married to a man from Bophuthatswana. In terms of the present dispensation, as agreed to between the two Governments, they then have citizenship of Bophuthatswana—both the man and the woman. Suppose however that they want Qwaqwa citizenship. This Bill makes that possible. Suppose the impossible happens and the House is convinced that the Opposition is correct and we accept their amendment. Suppose we are convinced, as they want us to be convinced, and we accept their amendment. We would then have no means at our disposal to accommodate those cases. Let me quote an example. Suppose part of a tribe now lives in an independent homeland area and voluntarily moves to another area. In this manner they can acquire citizenship of the non-independent fatherland area and thereby again acquire South African citizenship. In the absence of this legislation, that is not possible. This could not happen. Their former citizenship would have to remain unchanged. That is why I cannot understand—and here I agree with the NRP—that the Official Opposition is against this. I also agree with the NRP in another respect. In the Second Reading they wanted to extend the scope of the Bill to accommodate more people. For reasons which I set out very clearly, we voted against that. We are not prepared to extend it. I am not prepared automatically to restore every person’s citizenship to him, and I clearly set out my reasons for that. But now that we have reached the Third Reading and can in certain cases restore people’s citizenship, I cannot understand why the Official Opposition votes against that. As far as their argument of “respectability” is concerned, in all honesty I do not know whether it would lend “respectability” to a Bill if they were to support it. The hon. member for Pinelands has said with great show: “But we at least are being consistent.”

That is right.

But surely, Mr. Speaker, they are consistently wrong. I do not think that that is a qualification.

That is just your opinion.

Certainly! It is incidentally also the opinion of most of the voters in South Africa—strangely enough!

Where were you in Pinelands?

In this debate of course we have seen an interesting fight, a very interesting bit of in-fighting between the Opposition parties. They obviously wanted to settle the question of which of the two is the more effective Opposition. The reason why this is so—this is the first time I see it in the history of democracy throughout the world— is that a party which, from before the election until after the election has been progressing backwards, has nevertheless been promoted to the Official Opposition. I do not know of another country in the world where this has happened. Although that party has dwindled from 18 to 17 seats, it has been promoted to the Official Opposition.

Let me come back to the Bill. I want to say that the hon. member for Bloemfontein West has summarized the arguments raised so perfectly that I really have very little to add about the whole business. I just want to state that, as indicated in the long title, which summarizes the essence of the Bill, the issue is primarily the acquisition of citizenship of a non-independent territory in South Africa. South African citizenship is an additional matter, as is indicated in the long title. Nevertheless the hon. member for Musgrave argues persistently that the people concerned are being deprived of their South African citizenship. To him, that is all that is involved. The positive side of that is however true, i.e., that they are not being deprived of their South African citizenship, but that they have in fact acquired their own full citizenship. The hon. member is a pessimist—he wears a belt as well as braces. He says the bottle is half empty, but we say it is half full. That is the difference. He is forever seeing the negative side. These are not people who have been deprived of their South African citizenship, but rather people who, after years and years, have acquired full and proud citizenship of their own country. That is positive!

Did every citizen have a choice?

Their Governments negotiated the matter with our Government and acquired it for them and as a result of that they have obtained it. By means of this Bill we are now making it possible for certain heartache cases, awkward cases, difficult cases, compassionate cases, to be accommodated in this manner and again acquire homeland citizenship of a non-independent territory and with that also the right again to acquire South African citizenship. That is the crux of the legislation. I think it improves the present position. It does not go quite as far as the Opposition wants to go. They want to restore it automatically.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister to tell us whether this has anything whatever to do with the reacquisition of rights in terms of section 10 of the Urban Areas Act?

The primary issue here is that of people who can reacquire their South African citizenship on this basis. Let me make it clear, however, that it is not applicable to the children of these people or to people who have obtained their citizenship via another channel—I now refer to the people of Botswana, Asians and communists. But when a person has reacquired his citizenship in the normal manner, he will for all practical purposes again be a South African citizen, even when he acquires citizenship of a non-independent homeland, and he is again back in his original position, with all the privileges attached thereto. In other words, the answer to the question by the hon. member is “Yes”. The Opposition ought now to support the Third Reading of the Bill.

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

Upon which the House divided:

Ayes—122: Albertyn, J. T.; Ballot, G. C.; Bartlett, G. S.; Bodenstein, P.; Botha, C. J. van R.; Botha, J. C. G.; Botha, P. W.; Botha, R. F.; Botha, S. P.; Clase, P. J.; Coetsee, H. J.; Conradie, F. D.; Cronje, P.; Cruywagen, W. A.; Cuyler, W. J.; De Beer, S. J.; De Jager, A. M. van A.; De Jong, G.; De Klerk, F. W.; Delport, W. H.; De Villiers, D. J.; De Villiers, J. D.; De Wet, M. W.; Du Plessis, G. C.; Durr, K. D.; Durrant, R. B.; Du Toit, J. P.; 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.; 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, W. C. (Paarl); Malan, W. C. (Randburg); Malcomess, D. J. N.; Marais, J. S.; Marais, P. S.; Miller, R. B.; Morrison, G. de V.; Mulder, C. P.; Muller, S. L.; Myburgh, G. B.; Nel, D. J. L.; Nortje, J. H.; Nothnagel, A. E.; Olckers, R. de V.; Oldfield, G. N.; Page, B. W. B.; Palm, P. D.; Potgieter, S. P.; Pretorius, N. J.; Pyper, P. A.; Raubenheimer, A. J.; Raw, W. V.; Rencken, C. R. E.; Rossouw, W. J. C.; Schlebusch, A. L.; Schutte, D. P. A.; Scott, D. B.; Simkin, C. H. W.; 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, J. H.; Van der Merwe, W. L.; Van der Spuy, S. J. H.; Van der Walt, A. T.; Van der Wat, 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 Vuuren, J. J. M. J.; Van Vuuren, P. Z. J.; Van Zyl, J. J. B.; Venter, A. A.; Viljoen, P. J. van B.; Vlok, A. J.; Vorster, B. J.; Vosloo, W. L.; Wentzel, J. J. G.; Wessels, L.; Wood, N. B.

Tellers: L. J. Botha, S. F. Kotzé, J. P. A. Reyneke, N. F. Treurnicht, A. van Breda and V. A. Volker.

Noes—15: Basson, J. D. du P.; Dalling, D. J.; De Villiers, I. F. A.; Eglin, C. W.; Lorimer, R. J.; Marais, J. F.; Myburgh, P. A.; Schwarz, H. H.; Suzman, H.; Swart, R. A. F.; Van der Merwe, S. S.; Van Rensburg, H. E. J.; Widman, A. B.

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

Question affirmed and amendment dropped.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, as far as this amending Bill is concerned, the issue relating to clause 1 is a fairly straightforward one. It deals with the question as to whether a dwelling can be demolished with the Minister’s consent. In terms of the principal Act the dwelling referred to is—

In order to do that up to this stage, the consent of the hon. the Minister is required. The amending Bill which is now before us goes beyond “dwelling” and refers to “any building”. In other words, the issue is straightforward and the question is whether the matter should be taken out of the hands of the local authority which, up to this stage, had the sole right to determine whether a dwelling with more than five rooms should in fact be demolished. The reason why we oppose the measure is not a political one, but rather a question of relations between this high authority and the lower echelons of local and provincial government. It is a question of getting the best out of local authorities in particular. We are all concerned—and we share the hon. the Minister’s anxiety—that people must be properly housed and, wherever possible, should be provided with housing. When, however, the hon. the Minister replied, to the Second Reading debate he said—

I have no doubt that the hon. the Minister has now had an opportunity to ascertain why it is necessary to bring about this change and to change a system which has been operating for a very long time. The original Act was passed in 1934 and the amendment Act was passed in 1966.

If local authorities are not doing their job, permission can be granted so that we can take certain steps. I understand, however—the hon. the Minister may correct me—that what happened here is that some local authority gave permission for the demolition of dwellings with more than five rooms and erected parking garages on the site. The department is now concerned that perhaps local authorities will allow dwellings which normally could be used for occupation by people, to be demolished and that parking garages, parking lots or other services will be provided. If these are the reasons, I cannot, with respect, agree. I want to submit that what we are doing here, is interfering with the planning done by the local authority itself. It is the local authority who is at the seat of planning and it is the local authority who can decide best whether there should be a parking garage or not or whether some other project on behalf of the local authority should be allowed. With town planning the way it is, we are not only interfering with the autonomy of the local authority; we are also interfering with the authority of the provincial administration, because in terms of town planning and township ordinances, it is the provincial administration who has the final say as to whether it is a consent use to which there is an appeal to the local authority or whether, in fact, it is a rezoning application which goes directly to the provincial administration. It is in fact the Executive Committee of the provincial administration who is the final arbiter and authority on the question of town planning.

I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is really necessary to go as far as this. I think we can safely leave it to the local authority, because, as the hon. the Minister is certainly aware, there are other laws which protect the situation, particularly in regard to the dwellings.

I would like to refer the hon. the Minister to the Rent Control Act, in particular to the provisions of section 28 which deals with the limitation on ejectment. For example, in terms of section 28(c) it is provided that where the local authority feels and deems that there should be a demolition for a local purpose it can be done. The paragraph states that—

If the local authority want it for that purpose, it can obtain the property.

There is also protection, in terms of the same Act, for the people living in the dwelling, because a local authority cannot obtain an ejectment order unless it complies with certain requirements. Reasons as stipulated in section 29(a) must exist. The paragraph states—

1. (i) any court has previously issued an order in which it is declared that such reconstruction or rebuilding scheme is in the public interest…

It is apparent that a local authority cannot even get the order for the ejectment of the people living in the dwelling, unless it has been to court and has obtained an order in which it is declared that it is in the public interest. In order to do so section 29(2)(a) provides that the local Government must satisfy the court that—

Furthermore, section 2(d) provides that the court must be satisfied that—

The hon. the Minister will see that it is in fact very difficult to get a demolition order for controlled premises, that is to say if there are people living in the particular house …

What percentage of premises would that be?

I have a very limited experience in this field, but I am sure it is a very small percentage. However, I am still of the opinion that the provisions of clause 1 will interfere with the basic planning authority, the local authority, at the seat of planning. I want to suggest, with the greatest respect, that they are the best judges of what sort of planning should take place. They are the best judges as to whether they need a new road or parking garage on a particular place, and who is to say that the Department of Community Development and the hon. the Minister is a better judge of what is best in the town planning interest of the local authority?

I think there is always a degree of resentment if a local authority is interfered with. A local authority is, of course, a creature of statute. In the Transvaal it is bound by at least 95 provisions of the old Local Government Ordinance as to what it can do. Local authorities themselves feel that they are bound hand and foot, and therefore I think that instead of putting extra restrictions on them, we could achieve far more by talking to them and where necessary planning with them, which can be done in this respect. I would suggest that if, for example, the hon. the Minister would consult with any of the municipal associations of the four provinces or even with the United Municipal Executive itself, he would find, I am sure, that none of them welcome this type of provision. In these circumstances I feel justified in asking the hon. the Minister to reconsider his decision, and for those reasons we in these benches feel we cannot support clause 1.

Mr. Chairman, I listened to the representations made by the hon. member for Hillbrow with great attention because I have personal knowledge of his long and intimate association with a very important local authority. Obviously one respects the views of a person like that. I was personally associated with him over many years while he was associated with that local authority and therefore, too, I paid particular attention to what he had to say.

I want to reply at once to what the hon. member seemed to regard as his strongest argument, namely that there are other provisions on the Statute Book which protect the community or occupant against demolition. In this regard he referred to the Rent Control Act. Of course, what he said was perfectly correct. However, my difficulty with the Rent Control Act in this and other respects is that it only applies to 19% of the dwellings available to the public of South Africa. One still has the other 80% to take into consideration, and I do not think I can concede to the hon. member that I must be indifferent to the fate of 80% of the dwellings in South Africa because 19% have some form of protection. I think with his legal training the hon. member will appreciate the validity of my answer to him in this particular respect.

The hon. member also asked me whether I had had the opportunity since the Second Reading debate to determine the extent of the problem. I did not have time to conduct a full census, but I could refresh my memory on the evidence before the Commission on Low-cost Housing. From that evidence it is quite apparent that there are serious problems, not because the local authorities are inefficient, callous or indifferent, but because of things which have actually happened in certain instances. We have found, for example, that a dwelling was demolished for the sake of an electric transformer station, because the local authority did not have an opportunity to apply its mind to the problem—that was the reason given afterwards—where that particular transformer unit could have been placed. Things like this is bound to happen. I want to repeat what I said in the Second Reading debate, that one of the difficulties of smaller local authorities lies in the intimate nature of representations in small wards. The local representative is under very difficult and embarrassing pressure from people who have vested interests in this sort of situation. It is therefore much better that the unfortunate Minister should take the blame rather than the representative in such a small and intimate local authority.

My final answer to the hon. member is that I have the fullest confidence in local authorities, and I want to assure him that they are not going to be pushed aside and ignored. The hon. member’s main argument is that this provision is an insult to the local authorities as their views will not be properly taken into consideration even though they are, in his opinion, the best qualified to judge. I want to admit at once that in regard to many aspects of the problem they are the best qualified judges. For that reason it will be the function of my department and myself to take every decision in terms of this legislation in the closest consultation with the local authority concerned and with real regard to the views of the local authority. I want to give the hon. member this assurance. In his experience with the town council of Johannesburg the hon. member must have learned that there is very close liaison and a very happy relationship between the Department of Community Development and the local authorities of South Africa, including that of Johannesburg. I and my department will be the last in South Africa in any way to estrange ourselves from the local authorities. I want to give the hon. member my sincere assurance that this legislation will only be applied where the public interest is involved, but always in the closest consultation and after due deliberation with the local authorities concerned.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to elaborate a little on the reply given by the hon. the Minister. If one had wanted to, one could of course have advanced a political argument about the tremendous centralization of power. This possibility is contained in the clause. However, I shall leave it at that for the moment. I wonder whether the hon. the Minister realizes what additional administrative duties will be imposed on his department in applying this proposed legislation. In speaking of local authorities, one always thinks of the big local authorities, but the hon. the Minister’s department will be involved in every local authority throughout the country. Because it used to be applicable only in two or three cases, it was easy for local authorities to grant permission for the demolition of buildings in the past, but now, in terms of these provisions, no demolition will be possible without the hon. the Minister’s department being involved. The hon. the Minister has promised us—and we accept that promise— that there will be the fullest consultation between his department and the local authorities, but the provisions of clause 1(c) will in actual fact involve a great burden of additional administrative work. These proposed amendments are being presented at a time when one should actually have been moving in the opposite direction.

I want to raise a second matter. To what extent has there really been consultation with local authorities in the past? This is a cardinal question which one must ask. Then there are also people who interpret this clause as militating against the right of private initiative. Consequently we in these benches cannot support the clause.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to inform my hon. friend that there have in fact been consultations with local authorities in the past. However, it has not always been possible to reach a satisfactory decision. The chief cause is one I have already referred to, i.e. the question of the pressure brought to bear on the local authority in a small, intimate community, where ill-feelings may arise and all kinds of things happen which are less likely to happen in a big city. The hon. referred to a very good example. He said that we might have to pay more attention to small municipalities. We shall do that. Where we have had to act, we have not always acted against the municipalities. Often a municipality has been only too relieved to have us take over its responsibility, for the reason I have already mentioned. My department certainly does not flinch from the extra work which will be created by the provisions of this clause, because our relations with the local authorities are very intimate. Those relations are maintained, in the first place, by our regional offices, of which there is one in every major South African city to serve the neighbouring areas. There is a large measure of decentralization of administration in the department. In any event, those people have to act in close consultation with the local authorities at all times. This will mean an additional item on the agenda to be discussed and dealt with. It will not be the end of the world. It will not mean extra days of work. The people already know the circumstances of their regions very well. Nor will it mean that they will have to undertake special or extensive journeys to investigate matters. They work in co-operation with the municipality concerned, the public representatives, the town clerk and the town treasurer. I do not think this would be such a terrible thing. I am very sorry that my hon. friends are going to vote against this, for the day will come when an hon. member will approach me to ask for my assistance, because there is going to be great trouble in a town in his constituency if I do not act. We regularly receive these requests and I am now speaking from experience.

I understand the standpoint of my hon. friends. They do not have the experience of these matters that the Department of Community Development has. They regard the matter merely from a theoretical point of view, while we have to deal with the real, practical problems. Under those circumstances I cannot allow myself to be influenced by the objections of hon. members on the other side of the House.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hon. the Minister of Community Development for his sympathetic approach to this human problem. I shall always value the association I have had with the hon. the Minister over many years in the past.

However, I just want to draw attention to one or two aspects. 80% of the dwellings concerned are large dwellings.

A great number of scheme houses fall under rent control.

Yes. Those dwellings which fall under rent control are protected by the Rents Act. When these dwellings are not protected by the Rents Act, they will fall under a town-planning scheme. It is then up to the local authority to determine whether the town-planning scheme should take preference over the question of the dwelling itself. I have been closely associated with decisions as to whether to demolish dwellings or not. The line we always took was not to permit the demolition unless we were satisfied that the occupants had alternative accommodation or that the premises were vacant. Those two standards made it rather easy to deal with the problem. A human approach was used at all times.

I am happy to hear that there will be consultation with the local authorities. The hon. the Minister will note that there is nothing in this proposed section which obliges his department to consult the local authorities. If they consult with them it is only out of the kindness of their hearts. That may be the case with sympathetic Ministers and departments, but will there in all cases be time to consult with local authorities when the department becomes overwhelmed with work? I agree with the hon. member who has raised the question of the extra work which will have to be done by the department. I think the department will rather have difficulty in that regard.

I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to a further point. It concerns the following words in the proposed section 85(1)(c): “Is reasonably fit for human habitation or is reasonably capable of being made fit for such habitation.” In other words, it is not a slum and it is not ready to be demolished. There is, however, a possibility that the permit will not be granted if the hon. the Minister is of the opinion that a dwelling can be made fit for human habitation after spending a certain amount of money and after alterations and improvements have been made to the property itself. In that case how does the hon. the Minister propose to impose a liability upon the owner of that dwelling to spend the money and carry out the improvement, since it may be a property which is really not fit for human habitation? On the other hand, it may be that if one spends a little money on it, it is going to be. Does the hon. the Minister then intend forcing the owner of that dwelling to improve it and to make it habitable? Surely this is an intrusion on his private rights? I think he may have difficulty in being able to force this upon the owner himself.

Mr. Chairman, I have very great appreciation for the hon. the Minister’s patience with the hon. member for Hillbrow. I shall also try not to disturb the peace. If I sum up the matter correctly, the hon. member is arguing at cross purposes on this aspect. His standpoint is that the local authority is in the first place better able to decide on a town-planning scheme. Very well, let me concede that that argument of his is correct. The fact is, however, that this legislation does not in any way affect the powers of the local authority with regard to town planning. The only thing that this legislation stipulates, is that where demolition is to take place in terms of that town planning, permission has to be obtained from the Minister for dwellings which do not at present fall within the definition of a dwelling house. In other words, with respect to all those other houses which have to be demolished under the provisions of a town-planning scheme, which are smaller than five-roomed houses, the Minister’s permission for demolition has to be obtained at this stage in any case. All that happens now is that these larger units are also being brought within the scope of those provisions, so that the Minister has to decide on that. In other words, the capability of the local authority to decide on such a town-planning scheme is not at all in question in this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, with respect to the hon. member, if he looks at the definition of “dwelling” in section 1, he will see that it is described as a building having up to five rooms. If he looks at section 85 itself, he will see that the granting of a permit for demolition rests with the Minister and the Department of Community Development. In other words, if there are more than five rooms, it rests with the local authority. If one wants to demolish a dwelling of more than five rooms, it may be that the demolition is required to fit in with a town-planning scheme. A complaint that was made, as I understand it, is that a local authority—and I have not been corrected on this—allowed the demolition of a dwelling for the purpose of providing a parking lot. The parking lot fits in with the town-planning scheme and that being so, it is the local authority, with great respect, which should be entitled to make the decision as to whether or not there should be a parking lot which fits in with their town-planning scheme, maybe their whole transport scheme, their bus scheme or perhaps even their underground scheme. They are the best judges of the matter.

Mr. Chairman, my hon. friend introduces a new point into the debate when he asks about a dwelling which can be made fit for human occupation. He wants to know what will happen in the case of a home which is not fit for human occupation and in respect of which the department does not grant a demolition order. I wish to refer the hon. member to section 85A of the Housing Act, No. 4 of 1966, and I think it is worth my while reading it to the Committee. Section 85A(1) states—

Then, subsection (3) states—

1. (a) let the dwelling in question to any person … or
2. (b) direct the local authority to let the dwelling …

So, as the hon. member can see, there is no problem. We have dealt with hundreds of these cases. What hon. members do not appreciate is that under the existing law the Minister has to give permission for the demolition of the vast majority of dwellings that are intended for demolition. As my hon. friend mentioned during his first entry into this discussion, there is a provision that where a dwelling has five rooms or fewer, the Minister has to give permission, and those are the vast majority of cases that occur. Therefore we do have experience of this. There is no problem about this matter. If a man owns a house which is not quite fit for human habitation but which can be made fit for human habitation and he is not allowed to demolish it for good reason, then the economic sanction which will apply to him because he is unable to let it or to let it at a decent rental will very soon compel him to render it habitable. And that is our experience.

I said at the outset that I would listen to the arguments of the hon. member for Hillbrow with great respect and I have done so, but I find it difficult to sustain my respect for his arguments because they are repetitive and they are really not quite valid and, in some cases, they are even based on ignorance as in the case of the statement which he has just made about the unfit dwellings. I would therefore suggest that we now consider whether the Committee wants this clause or not and cease this discussion, because we know each other’s point of view.

Clause agreed to (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

House Resumed:

Bill reported without amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this specific clause of the Bill, which is in fact the only clause, deals with the provision of housing, and the onus, as always in the past, is, of course, being placed on the local authorities.

†Mr. Chairman, we all accept that since 1934 it has been the duty of a local authority to provide for suitable housing in its area. Then, of course, in 1971, we had an amendment to section 3(1)(b) in terms of which emphasis is placed on the provision of land in a particular district for the inhabitants. The local authority must provide in its district suitable land for its inhabitants. A new paragraph (c) is now being inserted, and we have difficulty with this provision.

I apologize to the hon. the Minister that we could not put our amendments on the Order Paper before the time, but I have handed the amendments to him which I should like to move later. As paragraph (c) stands at present, it means that whereas in the past there was a duty on a local authority to provide sufficient and adequate housing or to make sites available for residential purposes for its inhabitants, it will now have to take certain measures “for complying with any written request by the Secretary to make available in its district within a specified period in respect of a specified population group” certain land. This is totally unacceptable to us, and therefore I want to move the following amendment—

The purpose of this amendment is to prevent the occurrence of a situation in which a central authority can prescribe to any particular local authority to make residential sites available to a specific population group. It may be that the population group involved does not even live in that particular area. We in the NRP believe in local option. It is for that reason that I have moved the amendment specifying that this can only be done after consultation with the particular local authority. That will preserve local option and will also prevent the character of a specific residential area in a specific local authority from being changed or altered without the consent of that local authority.

In addition, I want to move as a further amendment—

The effect of this amendment will be that a local authority, after being consulted, must make available building sites for the inhabitants of a specified area, instead of for a specified population group within that area. Instances do occur in our thickly populated areas, particularly—I think of one instance now—along the Natal South Coast with its many different local authorities, where, within the area of jurisdiction of a particular local authority, under this specific provision, as a result of pressure from the top, provision has to be made for residential sites for a population group that has never really been associated with that particular local authority at all. Sometimes the population group involved belongs to an adjacent area administered by a completely different local authority.

Furthermore, I want to move as a third amendment—

I know that the present wording is based on a recommendation by the Fouché Commission. In fact, all the provisions of the Bill have resulted from recommendations by the Fouché Commission. I know that there are problems in this respect, but I still believe that it is the right of a particular local authority to decide its own character and that of the area under its jurisdiction. Part of that character would be the sizes of residential sites within that area of jurisdiction.

Mr. Chairman, during the Second Reading debate we on this side of the House objected to the Bill under discussion on two basic grounds. Firstly, we are of the opinion that the proposed new section 3(1) amounts to a violation of the autonomy of local authorities. Secondly, we believe that there is no adequate reason for such violation to be found in the report of the Fouché Commission which investigated this matter. We attach great value to the autonomy of local authorities and we appreciate the fact that the hon. the Minister indicated that he shared our feelings regarding that matter. That is exactly why we feel that there must be irrefutable evidence of the existence of a real problem, and that there is no other way in which that particular problem can be solved, before there is any violation of the autonomy of a local authority.

With regard to the second objection we raised, namely, that we are not convinced that adequate reason exists for violating the autonomy of local authorities, we were hoping that we could perhaps receive an indication from the hon. the Minister as to the magnitude the problem had assumed. Among other things, we should like to know whether this problem has existed for a long time, whether efforts have yet been made to gain the co-operation of local authorities by cooperation on a voluntary basis and by negotiation, and whether, after such efforts have been made, there were still some local authorities which obstinately and wilfully refused to fulfil their duties in this regard. Unfortunately the hon. the Minister did not furnish us with this information in his reply, and we must probably assume that apart from the information in the report, no further details are available to him, details which indicate that the interference envisaged in this Act, is necessary.

The hon. the Minister indicated that cooperation with local authorities was his aim and we support this approach of his. We should also like to see the problems which gave rise to this Bill solved by means of cooperation and negotiation, rather than by legislation! It was argued that the hon. the Minister was looking for co-operation. But surely legislation does not imply co-operation. Legislation implies coercion, and unfortunately it also implies that co-operation was indeed not successful. Otherwise, in my humble opinion, this legislation was introduced prematurely.

What this legislation envisages is that the Secretary can give detailed instructions to certain local authorities to make available building erven of a specific size and within a specific price range to specific population groups implying, therefore, that in general, the Secretary has a better knowledge of the needs existing in the area of a local authority than that particular authority itself.

In this regard I should like to deal briefly with two aspects which the hon. the Minister referred to himself. Firstly there is the statement—in my opinion a very important statement—made by the hon. the Minister, that there is a tendency among some local authorities to concentrate on the needs of people of the higher income group, obviously because of the higher rates they pay. We should like to know more about that. We should like to know whether local authorities called upon, after being in error in this regard, have refused to give their co-operation and have refused to abandon this regrettable approach. The hon. the Minister further mentioned that this legislation was not unreasonable. He quoted from the Bill and pointed out that the proposed new section 3(1) stipulates that it is the duty of local authorities to take all legal, necessary and reasonably practicable measures, and that consequently nothing more than fair measures are expected. In reply to that I must state that the reasons given in the Fouché report as to why these duties have not been fulfilled are in my opinion quite fair. There are no reasons which indicate stubbornness or wilfulness on the part of local authorities.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.