Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House yesterday evening I directed some questions to the hon. the Minister in connection with his intentions about various aspects of this Bill. In the time remaining to me I should like to summarize those questions, because I believe it is important that we do get some clarification from the hon. the Minister on these matters.

Firstly, I want to point out that in paragraph 419 of the Steyn Commission report the opinion that the provisions of section 3 of the Official Secrets Act, 1956, is applicable to all police information, is put forward by the commissioners. In the light of this I want to ask the hon. the Minister to tell us why it is necessary then to bring this matter forward at all. It is perhaps worthwhile to quote from the relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act, so that hon. members can try to understand that most of the matters which have been put forward as motivation for the introduction of this Bill are already covered in legislation. I quote from section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, which states, inter alia, and I hasten to add that I am quoting the relevant sections with regard to police; I am leaving out national security, military matters and matters of that sort—

Thus nobody is in fact allowed to publish any information on a police matter if he should reasonably have known that that could have been prejudicial to the State. I may add that a police matter is defined as being—

This seems to cover most things. There is one gap, however, and I shall admit that. That has to do with the arrest or detention of people. I do not think that that would fall within the ambit of the Police Act. It certainly would fall within the ambit of this particular Bill. It is an arguable case whether it falls within the ambit of the Police Act. Perhaps the hon. the Minister’s motivation in bringing forward this Bill has to do with detention. That makes it even more of a cause for opposition from hon. members on these benches. We do not believe it is necessary at any time—perhaps only in the most extreme circumstances—to hide the fact that people have been detained or arrested.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member to repeat his previous sentence in connection with his attitude to detentions and arrests? Unfortunately I did not follow him properly.

It is our contention that the hon. the Minister has brought this Bill purely and simply because it gives him the right to stop the publication of the fact that people have been arrested or detained. If that is indeed the case, it is even more reason for us to oppose it, because we do not believe that that should ever be a matter that is hidden from the public. We believe that the public have a right to know.

The next question I posed to the hon. the Minister last night had to do with the sort of machinery he envisaged was going to be set up to handle requests from the Press to publish matters relating to the police, information which, in terms of the Bill before us, has to be vetted before being released for publication. I pointed out that today, in any newspaper in the country, there is a tremendous amount of news that has to do with police matters. I took a look at some of this morning’s newspapers. Today most of the newspapers would not, in terms of this Bill, have been able to publish their front-page lead stories without ministerial approval. There are also an incredible number of fairly normal news stories that would also have required permission to print. Let us take, for example, this morning’s edition of Die Burger. I am not going to mention everything that would have to receive ministerial vetting. Certainly, the first story would be one of them. The heading of this is: “Drie bomme by Sasol gekeer.” This story concerns police action and would have had to have the approval of the hon. the Minister. There are other doubtful matters on the first page. On page 3 there is a similar kind of story. The heading of that is: “Jeugdiges dop duur motor om; man vlug.” I quote part of it—

On page 3 I can point out at least three or four news items of this nature.

What about the rugby on the back page?

What about Naas Botha?

There might perhaps even be difficulties about the rugby on the back page, because if a police team were to play rugby the same sort of trouble might be encountered. [Interjections.] On page 7 there is another story dealing with the escape of a policeman who was on security duty at Sasol. There must be six or seven stories in Die Burger alone. The Citizen also has five or six stories, including one covering the whole front page, which could not have been printed without ministerial sanction. On page 2 there are another two stories and on page 3 there are further stories. There is a story about a bomb found at Wits. It would not be possible to publish the fact that a bomb was found at Wits University. In The Cape Times there is also the lead story on the front page.

On page 2 there is an article about police arresting two pupils, police baton-charging in Paarl and one about a car stoned in Ravensmead. So here we have story after story which is regarded by the South African public as normal, the sort of thing that members of the public feel they are entitled to know, but such stories would have to receive ministerial sanction. If the hon. the Minister decides to go ahead with the Bill as it stands, he is going to have to set up machinery to handle the logistical problem of what to do with the Press in such a situation. He is going to have to delegate people who will be available 24 hours a day to deal with Press requests to have news released for publication. I do not know whether he envisages a situation in which hand-outs will be given, but I am sure the hon. the Minister does not appreciate just how huge this problem is that is confronting the Press. As he knows, all of the Press is very unhappy about it. I do not know whether he is going to lay on a Louis’ all-night service, or what he is going to do. Perhaps he is going to make available a telephone number so that people can telephone, at all hours of the day and night, and ask whether they may publish a certain piece of news or not. The mind boggles.

It is called Louis’ lifeline.

Well, perhaps Louis’ all-night service. It was quite interesting, when I was reading Die Burger, to read the NPU’s expressed view on this matter. The report reads as follows, and I hope the hon. the Minister is aware of this—

And this is important—

I must request that the hon. the Minister do reconsider.

Won’t you please read my standpoint in the last paragraph too.

I am sure the hon. the Minister can do that himself. [Interjections.] Since he has asked me, however, I am quite happy to do so.

Read my own statement in the last paragraph, please.

No, I am afraid there is no last paragraph that refers to the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] Perhaps I have a different edition of the newspaper to his, but there is nothing except what Mr. Miller says. I am referring to a report on page 9. There is nothing at all about what the hon. the Minister says. If he would like this copy of the newspaper, he is very welcome to have it because he says nothing at all. I shall pass it over. So we have a request from the NPU to withdraw the Bill at this stage, a very reasonable request that it should perhaps be referred to the Rabie Commission which is looking into the whole question of security legislation. I believe this would be an intelligent approach.

Finally, I should like to come to the matter that I raised right at the beginning of my speech. Perhaps the hon. the Minister will have an opportunity to put his own point of view. Perhaps he will be able to state his own standpoint. I asked the hon. the Minister a question about methods, i.e.: Do we need to use the weapons of our totalitarian enemies to protect the cause of democracy? We had many emotional speeches last night about whether people were for or against communism and all that sort of thing. I hope I made it clear to the House that we are all against communism and terrorism. It is how one fights them that is important.

The hon. member for Groote Schuur is not against it.

No, that is not true. The hon. the Minister says the hon. member for Groote Schuur is not against it. He is against it. The hon. member for Groote Schuur made his viewpoint quite plain. He said there was such danger from the way the NP was operating at the moment that the dangers from communism paled into insignificance beside it. I believe that things like the bus boycott are the result of the actions of the NP on previous occasions.

We all know that there is a tremendous threat from communism. We know that the communists would like very much to extend their sphere of influence to include South Africa. That is, however, not what we are talking about in this Bill. We are talking about the methods the Government is prepared to use to preserve the cause of democracy. We believe that the methods they are using, if they are going to use Bills like this, are the methods of totalitarianism. I believe that the publication of the truth is one of the greatest strengths of democracy. If we are going to preserve democracy and if in fact democracy is worth preserving, it must be a democracy that does not stoop to the levels to which our enemies stoop by using totalitarian legislation of this nature, if they use any legislation at all.

There is a final point it is very important to make, because so many hon. members on the other side have raised this question. I refer to the question of the publicity given to members on these benches who commented on the Bill on its original publication. Speaker after speaker on that side rose to his feet and said we were doing South Africa a disservice by commenting in that manner on the Bill. The point I want to make is that what does in fact do South Africa a disservice is the Bill itself and the publication of the Bill itself. It has nothing to do with what people say about it. It is the fact that it is not a democratic Bill that receives adverse publicity overseas.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member for Pretoria East now starts talking about the security of the State. I believe that the security of a State like South Africa can be preserved better by using the weapons of democracy and freedom than by totalitarian methods like this Bill. I am sick to death of the argument that one has to fight fire with fire, and that the end justifies the means. I believe that that is an immoral argument. I do not believe that the end justifies the means.

What do you say about the Official Secrets Act?

I believe that the weapons of democracy and the methods and philosophy of democracy are so strong that they will and can prevail without having to use Bills of this nature. That is the standpoint of my party. That is why we oppose this Bill. We are democrats. [Interjections.]

So is Mandela.

We do not believe that the Government is doing South Africa any service at all by approaching things in a totalitarian manner. I urge the hon. the Minister on behalf of many people in South Africa, including the newspapers that support the National Party, to think again about this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the hon. member whether the PFP is of the opinion that the State should have preventive powers related to State security.

The answer to that is quite clear: We are of that opinion. The State should have such powers, and they have them already.

What preventative powers related to State security do you say the State should have?

There is an old adage that says justice should be done, but it should also be seen to be done. I believe it is very necessary in any Western democratic society for justice to be seen to be done, and this Bill is an abnegation of that principle.

[Inaudible.]

I cannot hear what the hon. member is saying. If he wants to ask another question, let him get to his feet and ask another question. I cannot deal with members who sit in their seats and grumble away.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he can tell us in favour of which preventive powers the PFP is?

With respect, Sir, I think it was the hon. member for Hillbrow who said last night that there were 97 laws on the Statute Book that had to do with detentions and restrictions of one sort or another. I cannot possibly in the time remaining to me, or in the rest of the Parliamentary session for that matter, in detail go through the measures to which we would object and those which we would approve. I think that there is, however, a very clear principle involved here, viz. the democratic right to know, a principle which is laughed at by hon. members on the other side. I believe that the public, who are the State, have the right to know. What the hon. the Minister is asking for in this Bill is the power to stop publication. Any spy, any terrorist in his right mind does not need newspapers to find out things. I do not believe that the sort of thing one reads in newspapers is doing damage to South Africa. As I said last night, I believe South Africa was proud at the time of the Silverton operation and the Carlton Hotel incident that we had trained people who could deal very satisfactorily with a situation like that. I think it is good for morale. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member who does not feel inclined to listen to me can leave the House with my permission. The hon. member for Orange Grove has, quite rightly, pointed out that one of our objections, our major objection to this Bill, is that it is a gross invasion of the public’s right to information. I agree with what he said in that respect. I wish immediately to say that I support wholeheartedly the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave last night. In reading the speeches that were made last night—I was not present, but I did obtain the Hansard of the hon. the Minister’s introductory speech and of the speeches that other hon. members delivered here—I noticed that one or two hon. members stated that this Bill did not go much further than the Defence Amendment Act introduced in 1967. I think some of the hon. members incorrectly said that it was introduced in 1968. They said I had no objection to that Act. In looking up the debate of 1967, I see that I was not present when the vote was taken. I assume so because I am not recorded as voting on an improving amendment which was moved by the hon. member for Durban Point. The point is, however, that defence matters are completely different from the matters being covered by this Bill. The defence of South Africa per se is mentioned specifically in the Defence Amendment Act and the amendments which I did not oppose in that amending Bill did not go nearly as far as does the Bill which we are considering today. This Bill refers to the Terrorism Act of 1967, section 2 of which has a very wide definition indeed of what is implied by “terrorism” or “terroristic activities”. In fact, it has been pointed out by legal experts that practically anything could fall within the purview of section 2 of that Act, things such as illegal strikes and even the advocating of disinvestment from South Africa. It is a far wider Act than the Defence Amendment Act, and therefore I have no excuses to offer as to the difference in attitude in terms of the Defence Amendment Act of 1967, although possibly, on due reflection, I should have voted against that as well. I certainly have no doubt whatever about voting against this Bill today.

The Bill also goes very well beyond the suggested amendments in the report of the Steyn Commission to which the hon. the Minister referred, both in the Other Place and in his Second Reading introductory speech here yesterday. It is quite clear that, in making his decision as to how to frame this Bill, the hon. the Minister and his legal advisers went far beyond the recommendations of the Steyn Commission, and I think that they in fact attached more weight to the recommendation of Brig. Du Preez than to the Steyn Commission. His recommendations are far closer to the amendments which the hon. the Minister is introducing with this Bill. One only has to compare paragraph 422 of the report of the Steyn Commission to clause 1(a)(i) and (ii) of this Bill to see how much wider the provision in the Bill is than the Steyn Commission’s recommendation. To give only one example, the Steyn proposal reads—

It does not mention terrorism as it is defined in section 2 of the Terrorism Act. I think one therefore is entitled to assume that it means terrorism as it is in fact defined by any reasonable person, a definition which is much narrower than the definition in the Terrorism Act. It furthermore refers to “police operations”, whereas this Bill refers to “any member or part of the Force concerned in any action”, and that, too, is very much wider than the Steyn Commission’s report. So I do not accept the hon. the Minister’s explanation that this Bill emanates from the recommendations of the Steyn Commission. It also appears, when one looks at the amended Bill a little more carefully, that it does not in fact make all that difference to the impact of the original Bill which the hon. the Minister tabled in this House a couple of weeks ago. There was then an immediate uproar from both the English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking Press about that Bill. The hon. the Minister then denied that he had intended the Bill to have the impact that it apparently had and he immediately stated that he was going to introduce amendments in the Other Place. Those amendments were subsequently introduced and presumably will be moved in this House as well.

When one examines the new Bill more closely, including the amendments, one finds that the word “disclosure” has now been omitted from the Bill before the House and I agree that that is certainly something, because it does mean that word-of-mouth disclosures about the arrest or detention of any person is now not going to be prohibited by this legislation. Of course it also now excludes detentions and arrests specifically in terms of section 22 of the General Laws Amendment Act, which is often referred to as the “14-day detention provision” or the “little Terrorism Act”, or in terms of section 6(1) of the Terrorism Act, the “big Terrorism Act”.

The hon. the Minister himself has however confirmed, both in the Other Place and here yesterday, that this Bill would still prevent the publication of the names of persons who are detained or arrested. So, whether the proposed section 27C(2) of the Bill is omitted or not does not seem to make any difference, because the publication of the names of persons who are arrested or detained is still forbidden. We are therefore going to have a black-out on news relating to detainees, unless either the hon. the Minister or the Commissioner of Police authorizes the publication of such information or, I presume, unless questions are asked in this House, and that can only apply, of course, when Parliament is in session, because, as I pointed out the other day in another context, there is no accountability for more than six months of the year once the House goes into recess.

The hon. the Minister said in the Other Place that the only difference between this Bill and the provision in section 6(6) of the Terrorism Act of 1967 was that in terms of the Terrorism Act no person was entitled to any official information about a detainee, but there was no prohibition against the publication in a newspaper of information received from an unofficial source of a person’s detention, whereas in terms of this Bill there can be no publication of such unofficial information without prior authorization. The hon. the Minister said that that was the difference. I want to submit, however, that that is a world of difference. The hon. the Minister said “Dit is waaroor dit gaan”, and of course he is right, but there is still a world of difference, because it now means that no publication whatsoever, be it based on an official source or an unofficial source, can be published without ministerial permission. I want to know whether any official information is, in fact, going to be forthcoming. Is the hon. the Minister going to answer questions in Parliament about the number of people detained, who they are, how long they have been detained and under which law they have been detained? That is the crux of the matter.

The hon. the Minister tells us that the main objective of this legislation is to prevent publication merely over a time span. After that, he said, it would be permitted to be published. His exact words were—

Where is the time span in this Bill? This Bill gives the hon. the Minister the right indefinitely, for all time in fact, to prevent the publication of, shall we say, the names of persons who have been detained or arrested in connection with any activity under the wide definition of terrorism. That would, as I have said, include section 6 of the Terrorism Act, and also Section 22 of the General Law Amendment Act of 1966.

There is no limitation in time and I have to tell the hon. the Minister that safeguards mentioned in this House by himself, or for that matter by any other hon. Minister, are useless. What we need are safeguards in the law; if they are not inscribed in the law, we find that they are used quite capriciously. We have had many examples in the past of hon. Ministers giving assurances in this House that the powers granted under particular laws under discussion were never intended to be as widely used as hon. members of the Opposition feared. I remember that way back in the days of the 90-day law the then hon. Minister of Justice assured this House: “Note well. Detention can only be for 90 days.” What was our experience? People were released for five minutes after the 90 days had expired and then they were immediately clapped into gaol for a further 90 days. This happened over and over again despite ministerial assurances.

The security of the State demanded that.

Well, those concerned should have been honest enough to have said that it was indefinite detention and not: “Note well. I give this hon. House my assurance that this is detention for only 90 days”.

When the Terrorism Act of 1967 was introduced, we were assured by the then hon. Minister of Police, although not by the hon. the Minister of Justice who introduced that Bill—and he got the House’s full support, without my support thank goodness …

You never accept any assurance.

I have learnt not to, because assurances carry no weight of law, and hon. Ministers forget about the assurances they made or they are perhaps superseded by other hon. Ministers who made no such assurances and therefore do not need to worry about their predecessors’ assurances. However, in the case of the then hon. the Minister of Police, he gave the assurance that the Terrorism Act was only going to be used in cases of actions against terrorists in the bush. He gave us some very dramatic examples of the difficulties encountered by police fighting terrorists in the bush. He said that there could be an elephant standing 10 metres away and one would not even know that it was there and that that is the sort of terrain in which the police had to act. I wonder how many elephants were found in Soweto in 1976 and 1977, and how many there are in Langa, Guguletu, Mannenberg and Athlone, where the Terrorism Act is used to arrest people who are boycotting schools. That act was used throughout the 1976-’77 unrest.

The hon. the Minister gives us further assurances as far as this Bill is concerned. He tells us that the relatives of the next of kin will always be informed that their next of kin have been arrested. We were also given that assurance on previous occasions. What happened during the 1976-’77 riots? I was besieged by anxious parents looking for their children who had disappeared. They said they had gone from police station to police station trying to track down the whereabouts of their children and they were either told to “go and ask their Black Power” or to look in the morgue. That is what those parents were told. Yet there were ministerial assurances that the next of kin would always be told where their relatives were. It is all too easy, once one departs from the normal rule of law, from habeas corpus, for the police to discard the tedious procedures that are demanded under habeas corpus and to use very widely laws which were never intended to be used in that way.

I have no doubt that the period which the hon. the Minister or the Commissioner is going to consider to be necessary in which to prohibit the publication of news is likely to be just as limitless as the 90 days in terms of the 90-day detention law became.

Not only arrests and detentions may not be published, but also—and I quote from the proposed section 27C(1)(a)(i)—

Will the hon. the Minister tell us what this means? Does this mean that, if the Press observed the police using tear gas against school boycotters, some of whom were eventually arrested under either section 22 or section 6 of the Terrorism Act, or if the police are observed to make a baton charge or even to use fire-arms at a school protest meeting or against strikers or boycotters, this too can be prohibited from publication under this Bill? I ask the hon. the Minister to inform us about this, because people are being detained under Section 22 of the General Law Amendment Act at the present stage, people who are involved in school boycotts and strikes, and no doubt this is likely to continue. I also want to know what assurances the hon. the Minister thinks he can give us that he will use his powers …

But you do not want any assurances, do you?

No, but let him give the others the assurances; they may believe them. It might make them feel a little happier about this.

No, it will not.

I am talking about the people who support the legislation, the people who ought to be opposing it but who are in fact supporting it. Look at what has happened under the one branch of the media the Government already has under its complete control, viz. SATV. Look at what has happened there even without this Bill. The Government has complete control over SATV. I must admit that I am not a constant viewer and very often I am not there when the news is shown, because of the hour and so on, but I have inquired around and I do not know anybody who heard any mention or saw anything at all on SATV about the Elsies River shootings; yet that was headline news in all the newspapers in the country. If that is what is happening under the one branch of the media presently under the Government’s control …

What do I have to do with that? I have nothing to do with that.

I see the hon. the Minister has not grasped the point I am trying to make.

I am with you, but what on earth do I have to do with that?

That is the point. The hon. the Minister did not have anything to do with it, but nevertheless it is the one branch of the media under Government control and the Government’s attitude is that they want no viewing of these awkward and embarrassing incidents. So what is going to happen when the hon. the Minister does have control over the other branches of the media, the newspapers? Does the hon. the Minister now grasp my argument?

Why should it be any different?

Thank you very much for saying that.

What?

That I am going to control the newspapers.

But of course! What does the hon. the Minister think this Bill is all about? If the hon. the Minister wishes it, in two weeks’ time he can control the newspapers. There were other ugly incidents over school boycotts which he could consider as falling under the very wide definition of “terrorist activities” under section 2 of the Terrorism Act of 1967 and to which this would apply. He could tell them that they may not publish these things. That is what it is all about. The hon. the Minister shakes his head and he taps his head and I should like him to tell us what exactly he proposes to use this Bill for if it is not for incidents like that. I want to tell him that there is not the slightest doubt that, even if he does not use it like that, sooner or later somebody will. Sooner or later it will be so used, because once the powers are there, they are quite irresistible. Sooner or later somebody will be using those wide powers and there will be a complete black-out on any embarrassing news which can in any remote way be linked with terrorist activities. Then, I tell the hon. the Minister, rumour will stalk the land and the country will seethe with wild stories, and that will do far more damage, believe me, and create far more tension, than if the facts had been allowed to be published.

The irony of this whole Bill, of course, is that the Bill is hopelessly impractical. The hon. member for Orange Grove was developing this point. Very likely all sorts of transgressions will take place in all innocence. The hon. the Minister has said in his Second Reading speech that this is not the legislation to restrain the Press and that it is not his intention to restrain the Press. Does he recollect saying that? It of course does precisely that. I want to know how any Pressman, any innocent journalist, can ab initio on the spot decide whether what he is observing falls or does not fall within the ambit of this Bill. How does he decide? And the hon. the Minister should note that Pressmen are always under pressure; they have to meet a deadline. They want to get a scoop. They want to get news ahead of rival newspapers. Yet they are put in the impossible position of having to decide on the spot whether or not what they are observing falls within the very wide definitions of this legislation. I believe that is an impossible task. In any case of doubt the Press will first have to track down the Minister or the Commissioner of Police, because the penalties for not doing so are, may I remind the hon. the Minister, very severe indeed.

Let me give two examples of how this could happen. Let us take the recent Carlton Hotel incident where a man, as the hon. the Minister will remember, entered the hotel with dynamite in his possession. Police action was obviously called for. Crowds surrounded the hotel and the Press were also there. Will the hon. the Minister tell me how the Press will decide whether that incident falls within the ambit of “terrorist activities” or not? I presume that what the hon. the Minister really wants to limit it to are actions against the State. This was no action against the State. This person was a deranged man needing psychiatric treatment.

And he had explosives.

And he had explosives.

Was he a Prog?

I am quite sure he voted Nationalist at the last election. [Interjections.] How does the Press decide about that?

Then there is the example of the unhinged Mr. Protter, who a few years took the Israeli Consulate by siege and held hostages. Again the street was full of people, police action was called for and shots were exchanged. Does the Press publish in such a case or not? The hon. the Minister is placing the newspapers in an impossible position in which they must decide whether to report or not to report, whether to run the risk of heavy penalties or not to run that risk. Is there going to be somebody on the spot on all these occasions to advise the Press as to what they should do or not do?

Now take the Sasol explosions. In such a case the Press would again have to wait for ministerial permission to publish the news while, ironically enough, thousands of interested spectators have seen what was going on and have watched the smoke billowing forth. Indeed, only yesterday when I flew to Johannesburg I saw, when we passed Sasol, these two enormous plumes of smoke billowing up and the enormous flames leaping up. One cannot keep this sort of thing from the public. Surely it is far wiser to allow the Press to publish the news without any restriction or inhibition so that wild rumours do not sweep the land.

It is my contention and the contention of my party that it is far wiser to leave the informal arrangements which presently exist between the police and the Press, arrangements which I understand have worked well with unfailing regularity over all these years, than to introduce another measure which would quite clearly put South Africa into the category of countries behind the Iron Curtain.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Houghton has once again been true to type. That hon. member invariably argues in this House as if she holds a brief for the enemies of South Africa. Her speech today has once again been no exception to this rule.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is it in accord with your ruling in 1976, a ruling relating to aspersions upon the loyalty of hon. members to this country, that the hon. member for Mossel Bay should refer to the hon. member for Houghton as now holding a brief for the enemies of South Africa? [Interjections.]

I did not say that.

Order! The words the hon. member used were: “She argues as if she holds a brief for the enemies of South Africa.” I shall think the matter over for a while. The hon. member for Mossel Bay may proceed.

The hon. member for Houghton disputed the fact that the Bill at present under consideration is indeed a result of the recommendations of the Steyn Commission. She made a great fuss about the alleged fact that this Bill would ostensibly go much further than was envisaged in the recommendations of the Steyn Commission. However, to substantiate her allegation she relied solely on an alleged difference in the definition of “terrorism”. I think it is as clear as daylight that since the concept “terrorism” is clearly defined in the Terrorism Act, 1967, all references by the Steyn Commission or anyone else in this country who speaks authoritatively about the matter must be interpreted as a reference to terrorism as defined in the Terrorism Act. There are no grounds whatsoever for the argument that the Steyn Commission ostensibly had something else in mind when they referred to “terrorism” and not the concept as defined in the Terrorism Act.

The fact of the matter is that the Bill as it stands at present is indeed in every detail a direct result of the Steyn Commission’s recommendations. The only provision in the original Bill which may have gone further than the Steyn Commission’s recommendations, is being withdrawn and referred to the Rabie Commission. It seems to me, therefore, that the speeches made by the hon. members of the official Opposition had been prepared before they took cognizance of this withdrawal and reference, and despite the change in the situation, they are simply proceeding blindly with their speeches as they were originally prepared for them either by themselves or by others, and then-speeches are now neither here nor there.

It is alleged that this Bill encroaches upon the freedom of the Press. This side of the House is being blamed for this and it is being implied that the hon. the Minister and hon. members on this side of the House ostensibly have no respect for the freedom of the Press. I reject such an insinuation with the contempt it deserves. This side of the House is just as concerned about the freedom of the Press as any hon. member opposite. In substantiation I need merely refer to the speech which the hon. the Minister made in this regard in the course of the discussion of his Vote.

The fact of the matter is that organization wise, the Press is in no way being impeded by this Bill. If the argument were to be advanced that this Bill contains a purely theoretical element of encroachment upon the freedom of the Press, one would be able to agree, but the question is not whether, viewed in abstract terms, it contains an element of encroachment upon the freedom of the Press. The test is whether the extent of encroachment upon the freedom of the Press contained in this Bill is excessive and whether it is justified by the purpose being served by the Bill. That is the test. I want to state categorically that any encroachment upon the freedom of the Press which may be contained in this Bill, is entirely justified by what the Bill envisages and that it is by no means excessive. The question is asked why, instead of regulating the position by way of legislation, we cannot liaise with the Press Union instead in order to come to an understanding on these matters. Let me now make it very clear that the necessary machinery for liaising with the Newspaper Press Union does exist. Moreover liaison is constantly taking place. In many respects there is constant and close co-operation with the Press Union. The cardinal fact facing us here, however, is that in these circumstances there is not sufficient time to conduct protracted discussions with the Press Union on this matter. Experience in the past has taught us that these discussions can at times be protracted and that such discussions do not always produce the desired results, for a variety of reasons which I neither can nor wish to go into now. The fact of the matter is, however, that in the prevailing circumstances we simply do not have the time for protracted negotiations on these matters.

However, the fact that a section of the original Bill is now being withdrawn and referred to the Rabie Commission is surely indicative of the preparedness of the hon. the Minister and of hon. members on this side of the House to deliberate further about those parts of the Bill which are not so urgent. With regard to those matters, too, negotiations and discussions may be held with the Press Union. What now remains in the Bill is of such an urgent nature, however, that it simply cannot be held in abeyance. Need I furnish further proof of my statement than a mere reference to what happened the day before yesterday at Sasol and at Secunda? After this Bill had been introduced, precisely what we were afraid of, happened. If we have to wait even longer now, what then? How many Sasols and how many Secundas must still take place before we are able to pass appropriate legislation in this regard? Circumstances compel us to make this legislative provision now. Of course, this does not eliminate further discussions and negotiations, and if the Rabie Commission submits proposals which could improve this legislation, the hon. the Minister would undoubtedly approach them sympathetically and embody such recommendations in subsequent legislation. Without the necessary legislative authorization it is simply impossible to make provision for a situation which could crop up at any moment.

I believe we would do well to note the findings and note recommendations contained in the Steyn Commission’s report. In this regard I want to draw attention to paragraph 425 of the report, in which the Commission makes the following very clear—

Admittedly the Commission then says (par. 425)—

But the Commission then goes on to say—

The Steyn Commission is thus seeking by way of its recommendations to serve both these objectives, viz. protection of the state and the maintenance of civil rights. However, when a choice has to be made between these two considerations, the old Latin saying Salus populi suprema lex—the security and the welfare of the State is the highest law—applies. However valuable civil rights may be, and however important they may be to us, when it is a matter of the security and welfare of the State as a whole, with all its people, we may not allow the civic rights of persons or individuals to prevent us from doing our duty to the State.

They are not even interested.

I want to emphasize what has been said before. The right of the Press, however precious it may be, is no higher or loftier than the civil right of the individual. Press freedom is no sacred cow. The Press is in exactly the same position as any citizen of this country. Its rights are no more and no less. However, when the security and welfare of the State are at stake, the right of the individual, of the citizen, must take second place to the interests of the State and its people as a whole. That is why I believe it would be irresponsible under prevailing circumstances to proceed without placing on the Statute Book the provision which is being envisaged by this Bill. The obstructive tactics which are once again being adopted by hon. members of the official Opposition today, serve no other purpose but to endanger the best interests, welfare and the security of this country, which all of us love, and all its people. I do not believe that there is any substance to the arguments of the official Opposition.

Order! I still have to give a ruling on a point of order. I am afraid I cannot uphold the point of order. My reason for that is that if the hon. member had said that she argues a brief for the enemies of South Africa, it would have been a direct accusation, i.e. an accusation that the hon. member was knowingly doing it. The hon. member, however, used the words “as if she holds a brief’, and that to my mind is not a direct accusation. It could just as well be that the hon. member for Mossel Bay meant that the hon. member is unwittingly using arguments that he sees in a certain light.

[Inaudible.]

Order! What is the matter?

No, I was just commenting.

Order! Is the hon. member commenting on a ruling I am still making?

No, Sir.

Well, why does the hon. member not remain silent until I am finished?

[Inaudible.]

That then is my ruling.

Mr. Speaker, I am very glad that the hon. member for Mossel Bay has entered the debate this afternoon. It at least gives me some hope that some of the hon. members on the other side do not have end-of-sessionitis and are prepared to enter the debate on Bills which are highly important to the country and its future. I think all hon. members, on both sides of the House, will agree that this is a highly important Bill which deserves the full attention of all sides of the House.

And the full support.

We will come to the question of support in due course. When one considers that, of the four speakers so far this afternoon, I am the third on my feet for this party while only one hon. member has spoken for the other side, one begins to realize why I speak of end- of-sessionitis.

The hon. member for Mossel Bay said that the hon. member for Houghton spoke as if she held a brief for the enemies of South Africa. I want to refute that remark utterly and completely. It actually does not deserve very much attention. It is apparent that the hon. member for Mossel Bay does not understand the damage this type of legislation can do to South Africa, and that is what hon. members on this side of the House are trying to point out. I would go further and say that when this Bill in its original form first appeared on the Order Paper, it was sent in that form right round the world, and copy on it appeared in the overseas Press before any single member on this side of the House or any member of the NRP for that matter had commented. That is what does the damage. We of the official Opposition are objecting to the Bill, but not in any attempt to stir up feelings against South Africa. It is our patriotic duty, if we have objections to a Bill, to speak out in the House and to make objection to that Bill. The very fact of our being in opposition to the Government means that, where we disagree with them, we must use the platform we have, which is this House, to speak out our dismay and objection and to motivate our objection. For hon. members on that side of the House then to suggest that we are doing this as if we hold a brief for South Africa’s enemies is, I believe, not in keeping with the sort of debate which should take place in this House.

The hon. member for Mossel Bay also referred to the terrorist activities this week at Sasol and Secunda. Listening to him, I had the impression that he almost thought that, if the Bill before us this afternoon had been law at the beginning of the week, the affair at Sasol and Secunda would not have happened. This was the very clear impression created by what the hon. member said.

Then you do not understand Afrikaans.

I would suggest to him that he should have a look at his Hansard in that regard, because he referred very clearly to these two events as a justification for the Bill we have before us. Since he did not motivate this at all, I want to ask him in what way the Bill we have before us now would have helped the situation in regard to Sasol and Secunda. Would it have helped if the Press had not been able to publish that the explosion had occurred at these three places? Would it have helped if the Press had not published that one security guard was injured, had been shot, in the incident? Would it have helped if the Press had not published that there was a hole cut in the security fence? I cannot …

Order! The hon. member must find another example to refer to, because this matter is set down on the Order Paper for this evening.

Mr. Speaker, I was really referring to this matter in reply to the hon. member for Mossel Bay who had raised the subject.

I want to go further and say that the hon. member for Mossel Bay also advanced an argument in relation to Press freedom. It became quite apparent from his speech that he agrees with the contention of this side of the House that, if this Bill becomes law, Press freedom will be affected. He made out the clear case that the security of the State came ahead of Press freedom. [Interjections.] I will get to that argument in due course, but that was the case the hon. member made out. Therefore, the implication was clear that he believed that Press freedom was being hampered and will be hampered by this legislation. He was seeking to find an argument in favour of this legislation, and what he was really saying was that the security of the State transcended all things. That is all I have to say about the hon. member for Mossel Bay’s speech.

I want to point out that since the hon. the Prime Minister has become the Prime Minister of the country we have had a number of Bills, most of which subsequently became Acts of Parliament, which have had to do with Press freedom. When the history of this hon. the Prime Minister is written in 30, 40 or maybe 50 years’ time, one wonders whether his reign will not go down in history as a reign in which the Press freedom of South Africa came under very serious attack. We must not forget that during the course of last session we had no less than four Bills in front of the House which affected Press freedom. We had the Inquest Bill, we had clause 9 of the Police Amendment Bill, we had the Divorce Bill and, of course, we had the Advocate-General Bill. With regard to two of these Bills there was an outcry throughout South Africa, not only from the English-language Press but, in fact, even from the Government’s own newspaper, The Citizen. There was an outcry, for instance, against clause 9 of the Police Amendment Bill. All these Bills affected the freedom of the Press, and now during the 1980 session of Parliament once again there is a Bill on the Order Paper which will affect the freedom of the Press in South Africa.

Before developing my argument in this regard, there are a number of things which I believe must be said. I believe that it must be quite apparent to everybody in this House and in South Africa that my party believes in peaceful change in South Africa. We believe in bringing about change in South Africa through the medium of the ballot box, and not through the medium of the terrorist’s gun, the hand-grenade or the subversive activities that are carried out against the State. We, in these benches, do not support, admire, encourage or have anything to do with terrorism. Our children, and the children of our supporters, are fighting for South Africa on the borders of this land as members of the Defence Force. That to start off with, is a clear indication of the way we feel. We, in these benches, have always adopted this attitude. Our fathers fought for South Africa during the Second World War from 1939 to 1945. We, in these benches, will fight against any force which attempts to overthrow South Africa by force, be it a communistic force or be it a Fascist force. We on this side at least have a 100% record in this regard and we are proud of this record which stands since 1910.

What we are fighting for, however, is democracy. One of the pillars without which it would crumble is freedom of the Press. In this regard I should like to quote what some eminent people have said. In 1776 it was stated in the General Bill of Rights, drawn up by George Mason—

Mr. Justice Best said in 1820—

This is precisely our view in this regard. We believe that the passage of this Bill is attended with disadvantages to this country. We have seen in recent months the results of a vigilant Press in this country. One has only to look at the disclosures made in the Information Affair to realize the importance the Press can have in a democratic society. I believe that the Government is still, in passing this Bill, seeking to prevent another Press disclosure, another disclosure that could lead to queries in regard to government of this country. The Government is smarting and is still using every avenue to muzzle the Press.

In coming to the Bill itself, we must realize that in this Bill we are referring to the combating of terrorist activities as referred to in section 2 of the Terrorism Act of 1967. I have that Act in front of me. When one considers that publication is to be restricted in terms of section 2 of the Terrorism Act, this House needs to be aware of precisely how wide-ranging section 2 of the Terrorism Act is. It covers the most fantastic range of activities. It states, inter alia, that—

It is not necessarily law and order in relation to the security of the State, but law and order in the Republic in any sense—

That is very wide. Then one goes on to section 2(2), which reads—

One must realize that, when one looks at the Bill in this regard, the range of subjects which the Bill before us covers, is virtually limitless. It can go on and on, and any Press editor, when he has to publish a report in his paper, is going to have the most difficult time to try to decide whether or not the Bill, or the Act …

I have been listening to that argument since yesterday afternoon.

Well, then the hon. the Minister can listen to it a little longer.

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question? Will the hon. member tell this House how, if the wording suggested by the Steyn Commission had been used in this Bill, the word “terrorism” would then have been defined?

I believe that it is not the job of hon. members on this side of the House to define “terrorism”. However, if the Bill had been published in that way, it would have been necessary for that Bill, under the definitions, to define “terrorism”. I believe that “terrorism” would then not have been defined quite as widely as it is in the Bill in front of us.

One must remember that in this particular regard we are dealing with publishing in the Press in relation to matters of terrorism. When one gets to the actual Terrorism Act itself, there we are seeking to make the definition as wide as possible in order to gather every possible little terrorist fish into the net put out by the S.A. Police. That is why in that regard it is good that the Terrorism Act should contain the widest possible definition of “terrorism”.

We do not want it to happen that before any court of law—and, remember, I am making that distinction—any terrorist should escape on a technicality of law or in any other way. Therefore one had to make the relevant definitions, and especially the definition of “terrorism”, as wide as one possibly could, but in this Bill we are not seeking to put anybody in prison for being a terrorist. What we are seeking to do in terms of this Bill is to put somebody into prison simply for writing about the activities of a possible terrorist. It is not definite, until the person about whom the Press writes has been charged in terms of the Terrorism Act, that he is in fact a terrorist. Therefore the news editor is going to have to act as the judge himself in deciding whether the article that is in front of him for publishing in his newspaper is actually going to fall under this particular Act. I believe that one of the pitfalls that has been created in this Bill is that, in using the definition contained in section 2 of the Terrorism Act, we are using a definition which is without doubt far too wide in the context of a “Publications Bill”.

It would be interesting if a newspaper, at some time before the passing of this Bill or the bringing into law of this particular Bill, before printing its daily edition were to put a black ring around every single article in that paper that could be affected by the passing of this Bill. I believe that the number of black-ringed articles—and this has been borne out by the speech made earlier this afternoon by the hon. member for Orange Grove—in that particular edition of the newspaper, if omitted, would almost cut the newspaper to half its size, because, as I have said, this definition is far too wide and the number of matters that can be affected will be tremendous. It would visually bring home to the public what the Government is in fact doing in passing this Bill.

You are suggesting that to some newspaper.

We suggest that the public have a right and a need to know. The minute one starts curtailing information that is available to the public through the media through which they normally obtain information, namely the Press, the rumours and the rumour-mongers start emerging. One hears a story that such-and-such has happened and …

Do you not have one single new argument?

No.

Please give me just one new argument.

I hope the hon. the Minister will bear with me for the period of time that I am speaking. Actually, he has no option during the time that I am speaking but to bear with me. What I am saying is that rumours and rumour mongering will spread. The minute one reaches a situation where the public know that information in relation to terrorism is being curtailed by that hon. Minister sitting on the other side, then it gives credence to the rumours spread by people who do not have South Africa’s best interests at heart. He is only aiding and abetting those people in passing this Bill. Look only at Angola as an example. There we had a situation where the whole world knew what was happening in Angola while we in South Africa were not informed. We have had an example this year in the case of the ship which apparently discharged its oil in Durban and was then scuttled somewhere off the West African coast and a claim was put in for a full cargo of oil where it had in fact already been discharged.

You must be a Lloyds underwriter.

I have read many comments on that particular issue in various papers from Lloyds and in other documents. Yet in South Africa we were not allowed to know about it at all. What security are we protecting when the whole world knows while we in South Africa are not entitled to?

I do not believe that this legislation is necessary and what is more important is that not one hon. member on the other side of the House—and the hon. the Minister tells us that we are repeating our arguments—has told us or given us a concrete example as to why this legislation is necessary. I therefore plead with the hon. the Minister to give us a concrete example. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the subjective approach of the hon. members opposite has never been more obvious than when the hon. member for Orange Grove quoted reports from today’s Die Burger. It is very clear to me that he does not read Die Burger every day. He became so worked up about the statement issued by the National Press Union about this legislation that he only read the first paragraph or two containing criticism of the legislation and its handling. That was quite enough for him. However, the hon. member should also read the final paragraph, where my standpoint appears. The hon. member did not even read as far as that because his subjective state of mind did not get him that far. I quote—

[Interjections.]

This Bill is one of those in which the difference between on the one hand, the standpoint on this side of the House and, in this case, that of the hon. members of the NRP and the SAP too, and on the other that of the official Opposition, comes across so clearly.

There is only one real Opposition.

It was really instructive to watch the reactions of certain members of the official Opposition during this debate. I have no doubt that the hon. members for Groote Schuur, Pinelands, Green Point and Sea Point are an absolute embarrassment to their party with regard to this matter.

The hon. member for Groote Schuur adopted certain standpoints which were debated on, and he was asked by the Speaker to withdraw the allegations he had made. He withdrew them, and I accept that. His allegation was that the present Government was more dangerous than a communist or Russian government. The hon. member is confirming that once again.

That is what I said and what I withdrew.

Precisely, and I accept that, but it compels me to ask the hon. member, in the same spirit as he has displayed throughout the debate, whether he would prefer a communist Government in South Africa to an NP Government?

Do not be silly. Did the Russians kill Steve Biko or did the Government?

I ask it in the light of the hon. member’s hostile, subjective and disparaging attitude towards this Bill and the matters being discussed here … [Interjections.] I shall not take it any further. I am merely casting it in his teeth. He sits and mumbles and makes remarks throughout every debate. That is the attitude of the hon. member for Groote Schuur. That attitude of his is an embarrassment to his whole party.

I now turn to the arguments advanced.

†The hon. member for Musgrave raised a few arguments, but before I deal with that, I wish to thank all the hon. members on this side of the House and also the hon. members of the NRP and the SAP for their support. All these hon. members have made positive speeches, for which I am very thankful.

The hon. member for Musgrave, among others, has said that this Bill is the result of the appalling breakdown in relations between the Press and the police after what happened in Silverton. I want to assure the hon. member and this House that that is definitely not so. There has been no breakdown whatsoever in the relations between the Press and the police. What is more, there is actually a good amount of goodwill and strong co-operation between the Press and the police. There is no question of any breakdown.

I was referring to the time of the Silverton event.

And I am talking of the time before, during and since the Silverton event.

Now you are ruining it.

I am just giving the hon. member the assurance that there has been no breakdown whatsoever in the relations between the Press and the police. What is more, the Press and the police—and I have said this also in the debate on my Vote—are both working very hard to establish as good a relationship as is at all possible.

The hon. member also said that the police testified that they were unaware of the provisions of the Official Secrets Act in relation to security matters. That is not so. Why did the hon. member not make sure of his facts? The hon. member could only have read The Argus of 4 March 1980 where it said: “Secret Act: Details not studied by police chief’ and then: “The Commissioner of the S.A. Railway Police today admitted to the Steyn Commission …” What are the facts? The chairman of the commission asked the Commissioner of the Railway Police certain questions about the Official Secrets Act. The witness then said he was sorry that he did not have a look at it, but that he would have a look at the provisions and then reply to the questions put to him at a later stage. It is not a question of us not knowing what the provisions of the Official Secrets Act are and that because of that we have asked the Steyn Commission to draw up a Bill to assist us. That was the impression the hon. member tried to convey to this House. Why does he not make sure of his facts before he makes an allegation of that sort?

The hon. member also accused me of substituting the word “publication” for the word “disclosure” in the original Bill, a word which suggested a total ban, and thereby setting myself up as a super-censor in the publication of police matters in South Africa. I want to ask the hon. member whether he agrees with the editor of The Cape Times, who said the following in the leading article of The Cape Times of 29 May 1980—

Of course the hon. member agrees with that—

Is that what the hon. member wants?

Yes, of course.

The editor went on to say—

And then this—

Does the hon. member also agree that it is for the newspapers to decide what is or is not to be published? Is that also his view? [Interjections.]

What does the Steyn Commission say about this? I should like to quote paragraph 453. Unfortunately I have only the Afrikaans text in front of me—

*The commission goes on to say in paragraph 469, and I think that this, too, is very much to the point—

It is not a Minister of State who says so, nor is it the NP Minister of Police who says so. It is said by a very respected chairman of a certain commission. I also wish to quote an extract from paragraph 474—

Surely that is very clear.

†The hon. member also says that the result of the Bill will be that people will move into a twilight world. I think these are the words the hon. member used.

*But surely the hon. member knows that is not so. The hon. member is aware of the procedure which applies to people arrested in terms of the Terrorism Act. The hon. member knows that what is provided in section 6 of the Terrorism Act has been said repeatedly and proved in practice. Before turning to the provisions of this section, I first wish to point out that it has been shown repeatedly in practice that the Commissioner of Police instructs the police to notify a person’s family as soon as possible after he has been arrested. I do not say it is within five minutes, an hour or a day, but as soon as possible thereafter. What does the Act provide? Surely this is what the hon. members must look at because in any event they do not take any notice of undertakings that are given. Moreover I do not intend giving the hon. member for Houghton any undertaking because I know that she will not accept any undertaking given to her. I think we should rather confine our arguments solely to the provisions of the legislation. Section 6(2) of the Tourism Act provides—

That is of course the Minister of Justice—

Therefore, a detainee does not simply disappear off the face of the earth. The Commissioner of Police has to notify the Minister immediately of the arrest of such a person and then report to the Minister in writing once a month stating why he should not be released. Section 6(3) provides—

Of course he is told that.

Therefore there is no prohibition in the Act which entails that a detainee cannot say to the Minister that he must please tell the detainee’s wife or family that he is being detained in Cape Town. The hon. member is a lawyer and surely he knows that those are the provisions of the Terrorism Act. Surely the hon. member for Musgrave also knows that two senior officials have been appointed during the past few years as commissioners, as inspectors of detainees. They are the former Attorney-General of the Cape and a retired senior regional magistrate of Pretoria. Apart from all the other detainees they visit, they must also visit detainees under the Terrorism Act in order to ascertain from them whether they have any complaints of whatever nature. The number of these detainees is not particularly high. Unfortunately I do not have the figure available at the moment. Over the past year, however, these detainees have been visited 1 002 times. In the course of those 1 002 visits, only seven complaints were received, of which three were unfounded and four were referred to the Attorney-General who in turn refused to prosecute.

[Inaudible.]

That is the position. Surely the hon. member for Musgrave knows that. In fact, I provided the hon. member for Houghton with these details in reply to a question she put earlier this year. It is public knowledge and is in the possession of the hon. member for Musgrave.

[Inaudible.]

Order!

The hon. member for Houghton must just restrain herself a little. I am not speaking to her now. I am only speaking to the hon. member for Musgrave. There is something else I should like to say to the hon. member for Musgrave, something he may be unaware of. Some time ago—about a year or two ago—the Commissioner of Police specially appointed a senior colonel of his staff to pay regular police visits to people detained in terms of the Terrorism Act and also, just as in the case of the commissioners, to ensure that all was well with them, that they were being properly cared for, that they were in good health, that they were not being assaulted and that their complaints were being given the necessary attention. That senior colonel must report personally to the Commissioner of Police. Therefore it is not the case that people simply disappear off the face of the earth. Surely the hon. member for Musgrave is aware of these facts.

†What is it then that the hon. member actually wants? He knows that the interests of the accused are being well looked after. He knows that the next of kin of the accused will at some stage or another, as soon as possible after the arrest …

They are not the accused; they are detainees.

I am sorry. The next of kin of the arrested person will be notified. What is interesting, however, is that very often it happens that an arrested person has spent years outside the country, with the full knowledge of his relatives, but without them ever making any inquiries from the police about his whereabouts and also without the fact of his absence from the country being published in any newspaper. The moment he returns to the country, however, and the moment he is arrested, hon. members of the Opposition want us to inform the world that that person is back in South Africa and that he is now in custody. That is what hon. members of the Opposition want us to do. But prior to that, not a word is said about that person. Is it in the interests of South Africa to have this information published under circumstances like these? Surely, the hon. member ought to know better.

What can it do?

The fact of the matter is that it is striking that not a word is ever said by the Opposition about all these people who leave the country—and not all leave the country do so to go on holiday. Not a word is ever published by anyone about the fact that they are out of the country, neither by the Opposition nor by anyone else. Of course, I am not saying that the Opposition should publish this. Apparently no one is interested in them. However, the moment they return to South Africa, the moment they again become involved in their underground activities and are taken into custody, the world has to be told about it and it is taken amiss of us if we do not want to tell the world about it. How is one to explain these things?

The hon. member for Green Point levelled the accusation that this Bill was aimed against the Press and that he therefore found it repugnant. It does not surprise me to hear that. I have never yet heard of any legislation in this House relating to the security of the State which was not repugnant to the hon. member for Green Point. Not once in his speech did the hon. member advance a single positive argument with regard to State security. He was obsessed throughout solely with the position of the Press. Later in the course of my speech I shall come back to this, but I wish to repeat at this point that the police have absolutely no axe to grind with the Press in regard to this matter. We are dealing with other matters. There is a reason why the Press is involved here as a party which may not publish, but the reason for this is not the reason which the hon. member for Green Point seeks to imply. Is the hon. member for Green Point perhaps concerned about the fact that it will be possible to take more effective action against the enemies of South Africa as a result of this Bill? Does that worry him? I ask this because that was the whole essence of his speech. One could only form the impression that the hon. member was in fact concerned about that.

I do not think this legislation is going to be worth anything.

I therefore ask the hon. member whether that is what he is concerned about. The hon. member asks whether it is not possible to achieve the same results in specific cases by way of co-operation with the Press. Unfortunately I have to reply to that: “No, I do not think so.”

Can you mention examples?

I do not intend giving the hon. member examples across the floor of the House. I should prefer to indicate authoritatively what Mr. Justice Steyn had to say. Surely that would be more authoritative. After all, it does not matter what example I give the hon. member. After all, it will not be acceptable. I should like to acquaint the hon. member with the standpoint of Mr. Justice Steyn, and I quote from paragraph 221 of the commission’s report on page 124. I shall only quote the introduction—

This is said in the report of Mr. Justice Steyn’s commission. Arising out of the question which the hon. member put to me, I should like to quote from paragraph 2 to 6 of the report, page 125—

It is not I who say this. It is Mr. Justice Steyn who says it. I also wish to refer the hon. member to paragraph 512—and this is also a reply to the question which the hon. member put to me. In it the following is stated and I think this is very important—

What did he recommend?

That is what Mr. Justice Steyn has to say.

What did he recommend?

The hon. member can read the report. There are a number of standpoints which will interest him.

Not this Bill.

[Inaudible.]

This is in reply to the hon. member without going into unnecessary details of examples. There are sufficient authoritative standpoints that have been adopted by other important commissions in regard to this important matter.

The hon. member also asks, and quite rightly so, why the NPU was not consulted. He wants to know whether it was really so urgent to have this legislation on the Statute Book at this stage. I do not think any further reply is required. However, there is something I should like to say to the hon. member. The urgency of circumstances is one of the reasons why I did not consult with the NPU at this stage. I have said before— and I say it again this afternoon—that I have always intended, and still intend, to consult the NPU about this matter after this legislation has been passed through Parliament. I have said this to the NPU, too. I have every confidence in our discussions with the NPU, sufficient confidence to know that the NPU and the S.A. Police will be fully capable of working out the practical side of this legislation and determining how it can be implemented by both sides. The hon. member need not be concerned about that. I am confident that we shall indeed succeed in this regard. I also gave the NPU the assurance that the talks between the S.A. Police and the NPU would be resumed as soon as possible after the end of the parliamentary session. However, it has not yet been done at this stage for the reason I gave the hon. member.

Last night the hon. member for Hillbrow really made the most excited speech he has ever made in this House. It was quite a pleasure listening to him. At one stage I did not know who he was angry with and who he was not angry with. Ultimately not much remained concerning which I can reply to the hon. member. He gave us the most effective reply of all the hon. members of the official Opposition as far as this legislation is concerned by referring to paragraph 421? It states, inter alia, the following—

1. (i) Strengths of police units mobilized for combating terrorism;
2. (ii) type and nature of training of police reserve to combat terrorism;
3. (iii) particulars relating to arms, vehicles, vessels or other aids used by the police during such operations;
4. (iv) particulars in connection with contacts between the police and terrorists;
5. (v) particulars or information concerning the result of any contact or fight with terrorists, such as casualties injuries, abductions, arrests, attachments or seizure of weapons and other aids;
6. (vi) particulars in connection with any planning of other measures being taken or taken in combating terrorism or for any operation connected therewith;

That is all during operations.

The hon. member had no hesitation in telling the House that he agreed with that.

Yes, during operations.

All those things are things envisaged by this legislation. He agrees with that. However, the Chief Whip of the official Opposition has to pump him up a little first and tell him what he must and must not agree with this afternoon. Last night he agreed with all these things. Do hon. members know what else the hon. member agreed with? He agreed with the following—

He also agreed with subparagraph (viii). I think the hon. member for Houghton will feel terribly happy about that. It reads—

The last one reads—

The hon. member for Hillbrow agreed with all these things and said: “It is these very things that we do not want published.”

During operations.

We are now coming forward with legislation in which we say that these are the things we do not want published, but since yesterday afternoon we have been listening to a constant stream of opposition to this from hon. members opposite. What are we to make of hon. members?

Why do you not quote Steyn’s recommendations?

Among other things, the hon. member for Hillbrow also agreed with the following, and I quote from subparagraph (b) of paragraph 422—

Then the following is stated—

What is stated in section 118 of the Defence Act? The very things we are arguing about today. What is more, when that section was placed on the Statute Book, arguments similar to those advanced today by her colleagues were advanced by the hon. member for Houghton. Because this particular clause is now required, all hell breaks loose. The contents of the report of the Steyn Commission can be agreed on, and the principle, too, can be agreed on. What, then, is the Opposition’s standpoint? That is what I want to know.

Your Bill goes very much further.

Please deal with paragraph 419. [Interjections.]

I am going to reply to the hon. member on paragraph 419. He asked me about the paragraph in question last night. The hon. member also asked me what would be done and what had been done to cause this kind of system to work between the press and the police. I want to refer the hon. member to the discussion of my Vote when I explained the various steps in full. I do not think this is the occasion to repeat all that again. On that occasion I dealt with eight or nine points in detail.

†The hon. member for Orange Grove also mentioned one of two important things. He said, amongst other things, that he believed in the freedom of the Press. It was not an unqualified statement in that he said the Press should have the freedom to publish certain matters. He did not go further than that. The hon. member also referred to paragraph 421 of the report of the Steyn Commission and said that what is referred to in subparagraph (i) to (ix) he does not want to have published, exactly what the hon. member for Hillbrow said. Here again we have confirmation that they do not want these activities to be published.

*I therefore still want to know what this debate is about. The hon. members would like to protect the Press, but in essence the legislation does not concern the Press at all. In essence it concerns the security of the State. A few responsible members sensed this and confirmed that they did not want all these things to be published. I therefore cannot understand the attitude of the official Opposition. Now the hon. member comes along …

What were the problems in the past that caused this legislation to be introduced?

I do not want to go into the past now. The hon. member asked me to reply to him on the issue of the Official Secrets Act. The hon. member and other hon. members asked me to explain why the Official Secrets Act could not be used instead of this legislation. However, what are the facts of the matter? In spite of the Official Secrets Act, which was placed on the Statute Book in its present form in 1967, it was found necessary during that year to design a prohibition on the publication of certain information relating to Defence Force matters in order to spell out with greater exactitude which Defence Force matters should be controlled. This relates to the problem experienced with the Official Secrets Act, which problem was mentioned by the chairman of the Steyn Commission himself in the course of the evidence submitted to him with regard to this subject. In his own words the chairman declares as follows—

The chairman also asked whether it would not be better rather to have a separate Act which, as he put it, could be as definite as possible. The chairman therefore comes to the assistance of the witnesses who submitted evidence before him and he is of the opinion that this would be the right procedure. If one goes further and looks at section 3(2)(a) of the Official Secrets Act, one finds that it does not provide the necessary immediately effective control over the publication of this type of information. The weakness lies in the fact that in order to constitute an offence, the prohibited publication had to be published for any purpose, or in any manner, prejudicial to the safety or interests of the Republic. The latter element is apparently something which must be supported by evidence, and what this will amount to is that one will be closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Therefore, although it may be conceded that improper publication of information concerning police activities of the nature envisaged in the Bill are indeed probably punishable ex post facto under the Official Secrets Act, the aim of this Bill is to prevent harm before it is done. This is the attitude displayed by the chairman of the Commission. That this is how the problems are seen by the Steyn Commission is demonstrated, inter alia, by the recommendation by the Commission on legislation of this nature despite the opinion expressed in paragraph 419. Despite this opinion the chairman of the Commission states that legislation of a more restricted nature should be introduced. Therefore the chairman of the Commission recommends this legislation. These are, inter alia, the reasons why the Official Secrets Act is not being used in this connection. I think that that is more or less the area covered by the hon. member.

What about the machinery …

As far as that is concerned I have already said to the hon. member that in practice this will be determined in the course of discussions between the S.A. Police and the Newspaper Press Union. The hon. member for Houghton and the hon. member for East London-North advanced arguments which had already been used by the other hon. members and I do not intend replying to them again in detail.

Finally, I should just like to say that the motivation for this legislation is obvious from the recent events and from the report of the Steyn Commission. I do not intend giving the hon. member for Houghton or the other hon. members of the official Opposition any assurances that go beyond this Bill, apart from the provisions of the legislations as it stands. If I had had any time limit in mind I would have included it in the Bill. I therefore say to the hon. member for Houghton—I am being quite honest with her that I am not giving her any assurances concerning a time limit which will be implemented in terms of this Bill. All I can say is that the police have already given more than enough evidence, particularly in recent times, over the past year and more, of the attitude with which these legal provisions, too, are implemented. They are strict but fair.

In the second instance I should like to deal with the specific principle in terms of which the legislation ought to be implemented, and in this regard I want to refer hon. members in particular to one illuminating sentence in the evidence submitted by Prof. Piet Cillié appearing in paragraph 185 on page 113 of the report—

It must be legislation which is used selectively and does not stifle rightful criticism. There must be drastic legislation. This is the basis of the standpoint adopted by this side of the House in connection with this legislation. It is drastic legislation that must be used selectively and must not smother rightful criticism. Therefore I am not going to tell hon. members what section of a newspaper may not be published and what may be published. I am certainly not going to be guilty of that kind of nonsense in a Second Reading debate. The basis put forward by prof. Piet Cillié is the basis on which this legislation will be implemented in practice.

I conclude with the general idea that the interests of the State, as has been said here by other speakers, take precedence over those of the individual or the Press, and for that reason, and in the fight of all prevailing circumstances, which are known to all of us, this legislation is justified.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

The amendments provided for in the Bill are intended to solve a problem which is being experienced in connection with certain legal costs in sequestration proceedings. The problem lies in the fact that it is sometimes necessary to incur legal costs in connection with the interrogation, in terms of section 65(1) of the Insolvency Act, 1936, of an insolvent or another person at a meeting of creditors, while no tariff has been prescribed for such costs and the costs are not taxable either.

†Section 65(1) of the Insolvency Act, 1936, provides for the interrogation of an insolvent or any other person who is present at a meeting of creditors. The interrogation is normally done by the trustee, but he may employ an agent, such as an attorney or an advocate, to undertake the interrogation on his behalf. In certain cases where the issues are involved, it may be desirable in the interest of the creditors that the interrogation should be undertaken by a lawyer. Where the trustee employs an attorney or an advocate for this purpose, the attorney must look to the trustee for his remuneration and for the fees to be paid to the advocate. The trustee can, in terms of section 63 of the Act, apply to the Master for an increase of his remuneration to cover the costs incurred by him in connection with the interrogation. The Master may, however, refuse to increase the trustee’s remuneration if he is of the opinion that the incurring of the costs was unjustified. From the point of view of attorneys this situation is unsatisfactory, especially in view thereof that an attorney who has briefed an advocate for the interrogation is under an obligation to pay the advocate’s fees out of his own pocket within a limited time, whereas his own remuneration is dependent upon the approval by the Master of an increased fee for the trustee. On the other hand the Master is faced with the responsibility to ensure that trustees do not misuse the provisions of section 65(1) by employing attorneys and advocates in cases where it is not justified and where they can and should do the work themselves.

In an attempt to solve the problem, provision is made in the Bill for legal costs incurred in connection with an interrogation under section 65(1) of the Act to be included in the cost of the sequestration of the estate, provided that the Master’s prior approval for the incurring of such costs has been obtained. This will ensure that such costs are not unnecessarily incurred. It will further ensure that the costs incurred will be taxable according to a tariff fixed by the Master.

*Section 73 of the Insolvency Act, 1936, which provides, among other things, for the taxation of certain costs by the Master, also provides that the creditors and the insolvent must be given notice of the taxation and that they are entitled to attend the taxation proceedings and to object to the costing. The Bill provides for the deletion of these provisions. The reason is that the cost involved is only included in the cost of the sequestration of the estate if prior approval has been granted by the Master or the creditors for those costs to be incurred. The costs are taxed according to a specific tariff. Therefore the creditors know what they are letting themselves in for when they grant approval for the costs to be incurred. When the Master grants his prior approval, he has to be satisfied that the costs to be incurred will be justified under the circumstances. Here, too, the interests of creditors are safeguarded. In cases where a large number of creditors are involved, the requirement that notice be given of taxation is impractical and quite expensive, for example, in the liquidation of big real estate companies involving thousands of creditors. Moreover, practice has shown that creditors are not interested in the taxation of costs and do not attend the taxation proceedings.

The Association of Law Societies as well as the General Bar Council and the Chief Master of the Supreme Court were consulted in connection with the proposed provisions and have agreed to them.

Mr. Speaker, the official Opposition has only one problem with the legislation. It is quite clear that the first principle involved under clause 1(a) is a sound one, because it creates greater certainty with regard to legal costs when there is interrogation of an insolvent or claimant at a meeting of creditors.

As the hon. the Minister explained, it was customary in the past first to incur the costs of legal assistance and then to rely on the goodwill and approval of the Master to recover those costs. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs, both for the trustee who is involved and for the people who are rendering professional assistance to the trustee. Therefore we fully agree that there should be a prior arrangement between the Master of the Supreme Court and the trustee involved so that everything may be placed on a sound and secure basis.

As far as clause 1(b) is concerned, the hon. the Minister proposed that no notice should be given in any case to the insolvent or creditors of the fact that these legal costs I have referred to are going to be taxed. The reasons for this are excellent and obvious: In the first place, because people rarely turn up at these taxation proceedings, and in the second place, because in certain cases, as in the recent case of a company that went insolvent, thousands of creditors are involved. We are only pushing up the costs if we require notice to be given to the creditors. The hon. the Minister proposed that we abolish that notice altogether. We on this side of the House believe that it should not be done in such a final and absolute way and that the Master should rather be given an opportunity to decide in every specific case whether notice should be given or not, either to individuals or a general notice, by way of publication in a newspaper or in the Government Gazette, for example. The Master is best able to decide what is right and reasonable in a specific case and when the cost of notification is justified. In that connection, therefore, I want to depart from the amendment I intended to move and which is printed in my name on the Order Paper at the moment. I should prefer to move a somewhat more elegant amendment than the one we drafted earlier. Therefore I give notice now of the amendment I intend to move in the Committee Stage, which reads as follows—

The method and everything that is related to it, as well as the decision as to whether notice should be given, are then left to the Master. We consider this to be a better method of achieving virtually the same purpose as the one which the hon. the Minister has in mind. That is why I have given notice of this proposed amendment of mine. The amendment of which I have already given notice, and which is accordingly printed on the Order Paper, is therefore merely a consequential amendment.

Subject to the acceptance of this, we support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened with interest to the erudite speech by the hon. member for Johannesburg North. We will also support this measure. It is an improvement, particularly the provision for professional assistance in the interrogation by an attorney or an advocate, where in the past proper interrogation was frequently not carried out because of the problems associated with the costs. We support the provision that is being made now for such engagement of an attorney or advocate.

The second amendment for which provision is made in the Bill is also an improvement. The old provision was quite unnecessary. We do not believe that the proposed amendment of which the hon. member for Johannesburg North has given notice, is necessary. We believe that the Master, in framing his tariffs, has the full right to give any instructions he likes, to ask for any information, to instruct that any notice shall be given or not given according to this own judgment. It is an unnecessary tautology to state this in the form of an amendment. When he is taxing, the Master can obviously ask for any notice to be given which he requires, or any person to be present when the taxation is carried out. Therefore we believe that the amendment as proposed by the hon. the Minister is satisfactory, and we will support it.

Mr. Speaker, I quite agree with the hon. member for Johannesburg North that the Master should be given the discretion to decide whether or not creditors should be notified of a taxation. The purpose of this Bill is, on the one hand, to place the trustee on an equal footing with other parties involved in interrogation in terms of section 65 of the Act. On the other hand, it simplifies the procedure in connection with taxation and also saves costs incurred by the trustee of an insolvent estate. The proposed section 73(1A) places the trustee on the same footing as persons involved in interrogations in terms of section 65(1), because it gives him the assurance that his legal costs will be covered from the estate if he employs legal representatives to undertake the interrogation on his behalf. Section 65 does provide that a trustee, just like any other interested party, may make use of legal representation, but there is no specific provision for him to recover the cost involved from the estate. The reason for this is that the Master has always taken the final decision about whether those costs can be recovered from the estate or not, even if the creditors decided at a previous meeting that it should in fact be approved. The trustee usually recovered these costs by applying to the Master for an increase of fees, but he did this after the costs had already been incurred. The result was that there was some uncertainty on the part of the trustees. They did not know whether or not they would be able to recover these costs. However, it is often necessary for the trustees to make use of legal representation, especially in cases of complicated liquidations and insolvencies. In terms of this amendment, the trustee will have the certainty that his legal costs will form part of the estate before he employs a specific person to act on his behalf. He is also given certainty with regard to the amount, because the proposed section 73(1A) provides for the Master to frame a tariff and for him to get that amount.

Clause 1(b) of the Bill provides for the taxation to be simplified and for savings to be effected. The present position is that all creditors have to be notified of taxation, but in the case of big insolvencies and liquidations, thousands of persons may be involved. My information is that in the case of the recent Glen Anil liquidation case, as many as 6 000 persons were involved. Moreover, this used to be a dead letter in the past, for very few creditors indeed made use of it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank hon. members for their support. I want to say in advance that during the Committee Stage I shall accept the amendment of which the hon. member for Johannesburg North has given notice.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

I also indicate that I am prepared to accept the amendment printed on the Order Paper in the name of the hon. member for Yeoville.

Mr. Chairman, that makes the Committee Stage very easy, and I move as an amendment to the amendment—

The hon. the Deputy Minister has moved his amendment in the spirit of his undertaking during the Second Reading debate and therefore we should not have any further problem with this clause.

Are you moving the amendment to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s amendment?

Yes. If one looks at the Order Paper, one sees that my original amendment falls away in view of the amendment of the hon. the Deputy Minister. What I have just moved, is an amendment to his amendment.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Title:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

Amendment agreed to.

Title, as amended, agreed to.

House Resumed:

Bill reported with amendments.

Mr. Chairman, taking advantage of the opportunity normally given to us at the start of a Committee Stage, I want to refer at the outset to the hon. the Minister’s speech in reply to the Second Reading debate. I take the strongest possible exception to the way in which the hon. the Minister handled that reply. There were innuendoes in particular about the bus boycotts and the responsibility for those boycotts. The way the hon. the Minister spoke, one would have thought that we had been responsible for inciting that bus boycott.

I think you were.

Under no circumstances is that true. In fact, it is totally untrue and I take the strongest exception to it. I do not think it was necessary to make that sort of accusation when we were discussing a technical Bill of this nature and when we were discussing things in principle. What is more, he has now repeated it over the floor of the Committee. He has repeated that he feels that we were responsible for that bus boycott. I say again that it is not true.

I thought the whole tone of his performance, if I may call it that, was very unfortunate. His behaviour was almost like that of an actor who points an accusing finger. What we are trying to achieve in these debates is to create legislation for the good of the transport industry in South Africa, but if we are going to talk past each other without referring to what is before us in the Bill, we are going to get nowhere. Unfortunately we are again in the situation where so often the Government is in trouble and it is in trouble on things like boycotts because it is a very sensitive subject. With respect to what the hon. the Minister has said, I want to point out that they have sown the wind and they are reaping the whirlwind.

There you start again.

The hon. the Minister says: “There you go again”. I do not quite know what he means by that. I do not think he knows himself. They lash out with all sorts of accusations which they cannot substantiate. They make accusations and innuendos for no reason other than that, purely and simply, they think it will take the pressure off them. It does not do so. The hon. the Minister will learn that the chickens are coming home to roost. I think he thought that he was going to be the hero because he had announced substantial increases in the subsidies for fares. When he was not the hero and people still objected to the increases in fares, I think he felt very disappointed indeed.

I want to leave that subject and go on to the substance of clause 1. I move the amendment which is printed in my name on the Order Paper, as follows—

I must say at the outset that the proposed new paragraph (kA) is an improvement on the existing legislation, but I think the time has come when the hon. the Minister can afford to go just a little bit further. I believe he would be justified in this instance in allowing employers of labour, if they so wish, to use their own vehicles to pick up their employees from their homes and transport them to their place of work. I do not think this is going to happen on any large scale. It particularly applies to contractors. The hon. the Minister in his Second Reading speech motivated this clause on the basis that contractors who moved from one contract to another would be able to move their labour with their own transport. It frequently happens that labourers in contracting operations have to leave the township in the morning, go all the way into town and then be taken out past their place of residence to some place else to do their work. For example, in the Cape Flats one will find labourers who have to go to the head office of the contracting company in town and then have to be taken back right past Langa or Guguletu again to get to the contract site where they are working.

I believe it should be made legal for the employers to transport their labourers in those circumstances without having to apply for a permit. In other words, I do not believe that transport of this nature should fall under the definition of road transport. I believe the hon. the Minister should see his way clear to making it much more open. I, in fact, think it would help the transport situation in South Africa. We all know that trains and buses are overcrowded during peak periods in the morning. I think that originally this clause was inserted because it was felt that this practice constituted unfair competition with the bus companies. I do not believe that it is really any substantial competition at all. I believe it will happen in a minimum of cases. I do not think the majority of industrial and commercial undertakings want to be in a situation where they own a bus, kombi or truck which will fetch their labourers and take them to work.

Of course, when one comes to the more affluent members of the community who cannot be picked up by company transport when going elsewhere, I believe that the alternative tends to be the use of motor-cars. The net result of that is a waste of petroleum-based fuel. I think what we are talking about here is a waste of petroleum-based fuel. I believe that the present restriction, and even the restriction put forward by the hon. the Minister which does better the situation, does lead to petroleum-based fuel being wasted. What I am suggesting would obviate any such wastage. I do not believe that one will find a duplication of transport services. If it happens on any scale at all, I think the hon. the Minister could possibly have a rethink, but if one is going to encourage private individuals to use motorcars, simply because company transport is not allowed to come and pick them up, I think one will find a sort of a situation where inevitably people are going to use their own motor-cars and, by so doing, are going to waste fuel. Nothing can be more ridiculous than making people make unnecessary journeys which could be avoided so easily by allowing company transport to pick them up and take them to their place of work. I do not believe that the concession is such a far-reaching one in terms of the effect that it might have on the bus companies. I therefore ask the hon. the Minister to give consideration to this amendment and allow it to go through.

Mr. Chairman, by this amendment, does the hon. member for Orange Grove mean that the employer can then transport an employee from his home to his, the employer’s, normal place of business, his base office, workshop or whatever?

Yes, it would involve that. However, I do not believe this would happen on any great scale, and this is why I do not believe it would be competition for the bus companies. I do not believe that the majority of companies want to go into the transport business and I do not believe that they will go into the transport business. I think the majority of them would find it far too expensive, because they are not specialists in that business. I believe that they would much prefer that their employees went to work by bus or train, i.e. by public transport, which, generally speaking, is certainly cheaper in respect of trains than any transport they could provide, partly because of subsidies, and subsidies would not apply to them. In any event, I do not believe it would happen on any large scale, but it would allow employers to use their own vehicles to pick up labour and to take them to their place of work.

Mr. Chairman, I should like to begin with the introductory remark made by the hon. member for Orange Grove. I make no apology whatsoever for the standpoints I adopted in my reply to the Second Reading Debate.

[Inaudible.]

Would the hon. member just give me a chance to reply? I reacted to various things that were said in the debate, but I also reacted to what was said by the hon. members who did not participate in the debate. Without taking up too much of this Committee’s time, let us examine the history of the subject we are discussing. I am referring to a report which appeared in The Cape Times on 16 May this year, when we were discussing the Transport Vote, which includes, inter alia, bus services.

Which newspaper was that?

The Cape Times of 16 May.

What did it say?

I am referring to a report in The Cape Times in which the reporter quoted what was said by the hon. member for Sea Point in quotation marks. Judging from the report the hon. member for Sea Point in the first instance created the impression that there was no subsidy and that he was going to ask for one.

That is untrue.

Well, then you must tell the paper that.

I am telling you that.

I did not write it. Just give me a chance. I did not interrupt the hon. member for Orange Grove. If the hon. member for Sea Point wishes to participate in this debate, he must do so. It would be far better if he kept the promises which he made to the Press, for he gave the Press the undertaking that he would discuss the subject that day and he did not speak that day. The second thing the hon. member did …

That is not what the paper said.

He said he would speak at the first opportunity, possibly today. That is in the article.

He did not say what you said.

I do not know whether the hon. member for Groote Schuur is also the mouthpiece for the hon. member for Sea Point. [Interjections.] But participate in this debate then! [Interjections.]

Why do you not quote the paper?

I quoted him during the Second Reading. The hon. member went on to refer to the “extraordinary high tax that the Government has levied on fuel”. He spoke about that and he was entitled to do so. But the fact remains that we discussed that specific subject and on the same day on which the announcement on the new bus tariffs was made, I too furnished all the information—and the hon. member for Orange Grove knows this, for he was there —in respect of the subsidies on the new tariffs. Is that not correct?

I was there.

That is correct. But I have not heard one hon. member referring to the effect of those subsidies. The hon. member for Sea Point could on that occasion have said that they were inadequate. After having started the agitation he came to tell me that.

It was not an agitation.

Mr. Chairman, may I please be allowed to reply to the hon. member for Orange Grove?

Order! The hon. the Minister may proceed.

What did the hon. member for Green Point then do? Now the hon. members are being sensitive about this. During the Second Reading debate the hon. member for Sea Point said that we were treating the interests of the passengers of public bus services with contempt.

Inadequate.

No, he did not say ‘inadequate”, but “with contempt”. [Interjections.] The hon. member said this, and I can understand that the hon. member for Orange Grove would now like to find an excuse for the conduct of the hon. member for Green Point. This is what I was objecting to, and I have never objected in this House before when we have debated with one another, but I have always asked that we do this in a reasonable way. I objected to the attitude which was reflected in the speeches made by hon. members of the official Opposition. I want to reiterate this today. I indicated in my reply that there was no substance to the allegations made by the hon. member for Green Point. But hon. members went even further. The hon. member for Orange Grove was also guilty of it. He said that the road transportation boards were extensions of the S.A. Railways. I want to ask him now what evidence he has for saying so.

They are. [Interjections.] Has the hon. the Minister ever appeared before one?

Yes, more often than that hon. member, because I was a good lawyer.

It is a complete farce.

The hon. member for Groote Schuur must pardon me for not wanting to reply to him if he has a grudge against life.

I did not expect to hear that from you. [Interjections.]

I think the hon. member’s conduct is reprehensible. What evidence has the hon. member to say that the road transportation boards are extensions of the Railways? [Interjections.] I challenge him to produce that evidence.

It is my experience before them.

I challenge the hon. member to produce that evidence. Hon. members must not blame me now if they want to act as the hon. member for Groote Schuur is now acting. What else are they doing but casting suspicion upon the persons and bodies that have been established to weigh up and consider the interests of those involved in the matter? Surely that is what those hon. members are doing. That is also what the hon. member for Green Point has done. I say that hon. members opposite did not come forward with one iota of evidence to substantiate this reprehensible allegation against these institutions. Then the hon. member for Orange Grove takes umbrage at my sharp reaction to such conduct. Let me deal with this matter once again. What happened in the case in question? As a result of the various applications pertaining to the application of City Tramways to the local road transportation board, which were made to the court by a certain Rommel Roberts, I had the new application considered. I maintain that Rommel Roberts did not go to court on his own accord, but that for political reasons he was the pawn of other people and part of a phase of a revolt.

[Inaudible.]

I shall give it to the hon. member. To ensure that there could be no suggestion that the people who had considered the original application had been subjective in their approach and wanted to vindicate their own standpoints, I allowed the National Transport Commission itself to consider the application. This does not testify to contempt for the rights of passengers. I want to ask the hon. member for Orange Grove, who is a reasonable person in this respect, whether or not this was proper conduct on my part.

According to your likes perhaps.

The second thing I did, without the knowledge of any of those hon. members who during the past week have posed as the patrons of the rights of bus passengers, was to instruct the Director-General of Transport to call in the services of independent accountants to investigate the financial circumstances and position of this bus company and other companies in order to ensure that the passengers of the bus services are not in the first place being exploited.

Thirdly we placed the reports of these independent accountants at the disposal of the National Transport Commission when it considered the applications. For what reasons did we do this? Did we do this because we were contemptuous of the interests of bus passengers? What substance is there in this reprehensible innuendo of the hon. member for Green Point.

The Bill.

No, Sir. We must be tested by our deeds, not by words. I went further. The hon. member for Orange Grove will recall this.

Once again I want to state as my standpoint that I think we should make a change to the composition of the Local Road Transportation Board. Why do I want to do this? Do I want to do this because I want to create instruments to defeat the interests of the passengers? Or do I want to do this to ensure that people with legal training should perform the quasi-judicial function of the hearing of the applications? Does this testify to people who are contemptuous of the interests of others? But I went even further and said that I was convinced that the Director-General of Transport, as chairman of the National Transport Commission, should not constitute the court of appeal, not that he is unqualified to do so, but because he must advise me independently on these matters. Is this evidence of a Government, of people, who regard the rights of others with contempt? Some of the colleagues of the hon. member for Orange Grove in the official Opposition, together with other organizations and media have been playing a role over weeks and months which could have only one result, i.e. to cause people to revolt.

I do not believe that.

The hon. member may not believe that. It is his right to believe what he wants to believe and what he does not want to believe.

Wherever you have a problem you say an agitator is responsible.

If the shoe fits him and it pinches, the hon. member for Groote Schuur must not complain. [Interjections.]

Order!

[Inaudible.]

Van der Merwe, you are making a monkey of yourself.

He cannot make a monkey of himself; he was born that way.

I want to repeat that the hon. member for Green Point has no evidence to substantiate his conduct and conclusions, and when we come to clause 5, I shall debate his legal arguments with him. Heaven preserve me from ever needing the hon. member as a legal adviser.

I certainly do not want you as a client.

I go on to refer to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Orange Grove. The hon. member rightly said that the provisions which he wanted us to amend were an extension of the rights of business people. He welcomed this, but he wanted to extend them even further so that they would apply from the place of residence to the various premises of the business concerns. He understands the problem which may at once be created by that, since he said that he did not think very many people would avail themselves of this. But how can we work on the basis of his conviction? I have nothing against him, but he will understand that I would be opening a door here which would mean that businessmen could decide to convey all their people, and he would know that, if that situation were to arise it could prejudice the interests of public transport services, not only the bus companies and the Railways, but also private public services, for there are many of them in existence and the hon. member is aware of this. In other words, the hon. member’s amendment is not restricted to the small minority whom he thinks will avail themselves of it and which I could then have considered. His amendment includes everything. He will understand that in terms of the existing legislation it is possible for people who are compelled to fetch their employees at their homes to apply for permits to do so. The hon. member is also aware of the fact that we are in terms of clause 11 amending the existing section 17 of the Act for that very reason. As far as I know the hon. member has not placed an amendment to clause 11 on the Order Paper. Yet the two clauses are related to each other. I suggest that we reach an agreement with each other as to a specific procedure, if the hon. member wants to go along with that. In the first place we are extending the clause in question by entitling business entrepreneurs to convey their employees between places of business activities. In the existing Act provision is made for the conveyance of people from their place of residence to their place of employment. They need merely apply for permission to do so.

They need a permit.

They do need a permit, but they can do it. There is therefore no absolute prohibition against that. I am prepared, in all fairness, to ask the department to keep a record of such applications for this very purpose, so that we can be able to assess the situation next year. Then we will be able to establish how many applications of this nature there have been, how many of them have in fact been granted, and how many have been refused. I submit that we will then be better qualified to judge whether I should extend this provision any further than I am doing now. I believe it is a fair offer I am making to the hon. member for Orange Grove.

Mr. Chairman, before I actually speak to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Orange Grove, I should like to take this opportunity also of expressing a point of view on this clause, and also on the subject raised by the hon. member for Orange Grove. That is, his complaint, if I understood him correctly, about the hon. the Minister’s attack on him during the Second Reading debate. During the course of this debate, I think, it was the hon. member for Green Point who asked what the facts were in connection with whether or not the official Opposition was in fact working actively with the agitators who had been causing problems in the bus services. I should like, however, to put the following point to the hon. member for Green Point. The facts are that, so far in this debate, we have not once had any hon. member of the official Opposition approach this problem in a balanced manner. Not once has any hon. member of the official Opposition stated all sides of the case clearly to this House in an effort to find a solution to the problems involved.

I believe I stated my case very clearly during the Second Reading debate, when I tried to point out clearly the various responsibilities which lie with the Government, with the bus operators, with the bus users and with politicians. I should like to put it again to hon. members of the official Opposition that not once have they approached this problem in a balanced manner. All they have persisted in doing, is to fight the cause of those people who, it would appear, are the ones who are causing many of the problems in connection with bus transportation.

Well, those people feel very, very strongly about this.

The hon. member for Groote Schuur says they feel very strongly about this. That is quite correct. However, if we take a strong line, and side with every person who feels strongly about a certain matter, even though he may be ill advised in so doing or acting in the way he does, we will just be stoking the fires of agitation and unrest. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

Order!

I said earlier that I had stated my case quite clearly. I also said quite clearly that there is more than one side to every problem. The official Opposition, however, seems incapable of looking at a problem such as this in an objective manner. They look at it only from one side, and that is the side which is at this stage the side of the agitator. [Interjections.] If they are now being accused of being “opstokers”—if I may use that term—then, if the shoe fits them, they must simply wear it. [Interjections.]

As far as this particular clause is concerned, I should just like to point out that during Second Reading I asked the hon. the Minister whether it was not possible to amend this clause in order to enable an employer, to also transport his employees from their homes to their various work sites, or from their work sites back home, should he so desire. I do not believe the amendment moved by the hon. member for Orange Grove will achieve this. Rather, he is now trying to broaden it very widely, too widely I believe, and the hon. the Minister says he will ask the department to establish how many employers will apply for permits in order to do what I have been asking for. I do, however, put it to the hon. the Minister once again that I think no harm can be done by allowing this to be done without the requirement of a permit. In fact, a lot of good could be achieved if, somewhere in the legislation, possibly by amending the amendment of the hon. member for Orange Grove, it could be made possible for an employer, if he is to take his staff to a work-place other than his normal place of business, whether it is building site or whatever, to pick up his employees on the way there, at some point other than their normal place of work. How this is to be achieved I do not know, but I do believe that a lot of good could be achieved if we were able to move such an amendment, because as I said in the Second Reading debate, it would cut out a lot of unnecessary travelling on the part of say Black employees who have great distances to travel to and from their homes in the townships, etc. It would save money and fuel and would, I think, also be of benefit to all concerned. So I put that to the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal very briefly with the direct personal allegations the hon. the Minister made against me in connection with the provisions of this Act.

Order! I cannot allow another Second Reading speech on this clause. The hon. member can make his point during the Third Reading debate.

Mr. Chairman, do I understand then that the hon. the Minister …

Order! I allowed one person from each party to address the Committee on the principle of this clause.

Mr. Chairman, may I reply to the attack the hon. the Minister made on me this afternoon?

Order! I am afraid I cannot allow it. The hon. member can do so during his Third Reading speech.

Mr. Chairman, am I to understand that the hon. the Minister is entitled to make attacks on a member, but the member is not entitled to reply? [Interjections.]

Order! The position is that every party has been entitled to one speech on the principle again. I have allowed such speeches to be made by the hon. member for Orange Grove, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti and the hon. the Minister. The hon. member can always raise that point during the Third Reading debate.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to say briefly that I am sure the hon. member for Sea Point will have the opportunity, when clause 5 is discussed and that particular aspect is dealt with, to deal with the relevant situation. I would just like to tell the hon. the Minister, in all sincerity, that I really believe that he should, some time or other, do the rounds of the road transportation offices and see their daily operations because rightly or wrongly—and I believe correctly—the majority of the private enterprise road transportation industry in South Africa believe that they are unfairly discriminated against by road transportation boards. They feel that road transportation boards operate in favour of the Railways and the big undertakings like City Tramways. They believe that no reasonable opportunities are given to them to even get a toe in the door. This might well be the policy of the Government, but from my own observation of what goes on in road transportation offices I believe that there is plenty of room for improvement.

Obviously at this stage I cannot go into the whole question of the bus boycott and bus strike any further. It is my intention, however, to raise it during discussions on clause 4 and clause 5, when that particular subject is dealt with.

I appreciate the offer the hon. the Minister has made in regard to my amendment, but I am not sure that we are going to get a satisfactory result, because the fact of the matter is that the majority of the people in such circumstances know what a tremendous hassle it is to go to a road transportation board and apply for a permit, an application which is almost invariably refused. The majority of them, from bitter experience in the past, will merely say it is not even worth going to a road transportation board because obviously the application is going to be refused. So I am sure the hon. the Minister will find—that is if road transportation boards keep records of applications of this nature—that there will be virtually none, because the past still lives with people. I do not believe that they will apply. As a result of this debate it is possible that contracting organizations, the Federation of Building Trades’ Employers, the Civil Engineers Association and people like that might well circularize their members to make sure that they do apply, but I am not sure that the hon. the Minister is going to get the desired result. I want to say that it is not just a matter of faith that makes me believe that it is a good thing that this should happen and that it will not do damage to the bus companies. All I can say is that I believe that this is the only country in the world that protects its bus companies in this manner. This is the only country in the world where an employer is forbidden by law from going to pick up his employees at their homes and taking them back. I recognize the point made by the hon. member for Amanzimtoti that my amendment should probably have read “to and from any place where they are to perform …”. My intention was drawn to this by the hon. member for Umhlanga As far as I know this is the only country in the world where this situation exists. I cannot conceive that damage can be done to the bus companies. On the basis that the hon. the Minister is going to investigate the matter—though I am not sure that investigation will produce any authoritative results—I obviously cannot take the matter any further at this stage.

While on the subject of clause 1, I want to say that the hon. the Minister will remember that during the Second Reading I raised the question of the 40 km and 80 km limits. I want to suggest to the hon. the Minister that this clause could, in fact, have gone further. I had it in mind to move an amendment, but the hon. the Minister is making certain concessions already and he also indicated his willingness during the Second Reading debate to look into this matter. I honestly believe that we are making a false line of delineation now between people who own their own transport and people who hire transport. I believe that if he merely intends to free the transport industry from as much restriction as possible he should some time in the future look to a situation where the 40 km and 80 km limits are done away with and all transport within a 80 km radius be regarded in the same way. I am going to persist with my amendment because I do not believe that we are going to get authoritative information out of the road transportation board, but I must tell the hon. the Minister that I do appreciate the fact that he is at least prepared to look at it.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove was one of the members who sat with us for almost a whole year to investigate the problems of road transportation. Today he advocated something which cropped up repeatedly, and I want to tell the hon. member briefly what this amounts to. Let us take it, for example, that workers from Soweto have to catch a bus to the lower part of Faraday station. These workers work at 10 different factories. Some of the factories employ five workers, while others employ 120, 10, or three workers. It pays the firm employing 120 workers to provide transport to take them to and from the factory, but in the case of the other 10, 20, 30 or 40 remaining workers, the factory cannot afford to provide them with transport over a distance of 50 km. There are, however, buses that can convey 180 to 200 people at a time. In other words, it is in the interests not only of the bus companies, but also of the industry as a whole. I think the hon. member is aware of the fact that no application by any person or body for the conveyance of its workers to any place where there is no public transport, has ever been refused. I looked up between 700 and 800 applications for this type of service, and where there were no public transport facilities, applications were never opposed. When a person wishes to convey workers on a route which is served by public transport and this will not prejudice the bus service or the people using it, such an application is granted. However, the major problem is on routes such as that from Soweto to Isando or Faraday. If an application were to be granted on such a route, this could mean that the number of passengers utilizing the existing bus service could be halved. This would mean that the bus fare would be increased by up to 50%. If that were to happen hon. members of the Opposition would be the first to kick up a big fuss about it. The hon. members are not taking into account the fact that more than R7 million is being spent on subsidizing bus transport in Johannesburg and its environs. How can we continue in this way? After all, we cannot withdraw buses from certain routes. I think hon. members must help us, in the interest of business, to ensure that as far as existing bus routes are concerned, people are not allowed to convey their own employees, for anything of this nature would be to the detriment of the workers as a whole. But it would also be to the detriment of smaller business concerns which are unable to transport their own people.

Mr. Chairman, I accept as factual a lot of what the hon. member for Langlaagte has said, but we must look at this issue from the point of view of productivity, time-saving, labour-saving and fuel-saving. There is something which disturbs me. In this connection I also have in mind what the hon. member for Langlaagte said about the small businessman.

Let us look at a building contractor who, for argument’s sake, may have to wait for his employees to come to his yard in order to be taken to a particular site on which he is operating that day, that week or that month. He may have to pass right by that employee’s door to get back to that site, but in terms of the clause, unless I am reading it wrong, the employee has to catch a bus—let us not always think in terms of catching a train or a bus—or use his own motor-car. He has to drive his motor-car to the yard of his employer where he parks it. He is then taken with the other employees in a pick-up or “bakkie” to the site. That site may be 100 yards from his home, but five miles from the yard. In the afternoon he is brought all the way back to the yard again so that he can drive home. This is the sort of situation which I think happens all too often. I think it is precisely the sort of situation which we ought to try to avoid.

I do not profess to be a “fundi” when it comes to wording the sort of amendment that this seems to require. I think this sort of situation is also exercising the mind of the hon. member for Orange Grove. I do not think we are thinking in terms of the man who is now going to put a bus on the road; we are thinking to a greater extent of the man who is operating a smaller type of business. I think we are genuinely thinking in terms of the saving of fuel and certainly the increase in productivity which can be obtained by means of a reasonable and acceptable amendment to this clause. I am sorry that I cannot draft such an amendment, but I do urge the hon. member for Orange Grove to amend his to read “to and from any place where they are to perform any work of their industry”. At the moment his amendment is tantamount to a one-way ticket and I think he must insert the words “and from” between “to” and “any” in the opening sentence of his amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. the Minister must be very clear in his mind now what we are after, especially after listening to the hon. member for Umhlanga. In order to achieve what we are trying to achieve, I move as an amendment—

If this amendment is accepted, the provision will read—

If the hon. the Minister would agree to that amendment, it would then mean that an employer could not only take the employee from his normal place of work to another job-site, but also on the way to the job be able to pick up that employee closer to his place of residence. I submit the amendment to the hon. the Minister, but may be he would like more time to think about it. However, I do think it would solve the problem and achieve what we are trying to achieve.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot possibly accept the amendment. What does “close to his residence” mean? In all fairness, what does it mean? 50 yards or 100 miles?

Does it matter?

Of course it matters. May I just correct one situation? Firstly, those hon. members were on the commission, as the hon. member for Langlaagte has indicated, and as a result of the work they did, the Road Transportation Act of 1977 was passed. There was a prohibition in that Act against the conveyance of employees, also from one point of business to another. I am extending that particular section at the moment, but quite apart from the automatic right that business people would have, once this is accepted, to transport their employees from one point of business to another, there is no total prohibition against any businessman arranging for the transport of his employees from their residence to their point of work; but not in terms of this clause. They are entitled to apply for that right, and when the application is made, the various considerations that are enunciated in the Act itself would have to be considered. I am not going to repeat them, but may I just mention two? The first is whether there is other available transport and, secondly, the question whether fuel is used or conserved, which is being inserted now. The problem that I have if I accept the amendment of the hon. member for Orange Grove or the amendment of the hon. member for Amanzimtoti, is that the whole position will be changed materially in the sense that any businessman will then be entitled to transport his own employees from their homes or residences to their point of work and from one point of work to another point of work …

Not in terms of my amendment.

No, just give me a chance. I do not wish to deny the right to business people to do this. But then this matter must be dealt with in terms of the other section, and I think that is a fair approach. It is true that with bus services more often than not one works on economies of scale; otherwise it would never become economic to do so or the tariffs would be so high that the commuters would not be able to pay those tariffs, as the hon. member for Langlaagte has indicated. And who is going to suffer? The small businessman is going to suffer. It will also destroy the whole concept of mass public transport, and we must understand this.

Thirdly, at the moment, with the public transport we have, it is possible to have control measures for the purpose of subsidizing that transport. Hon. members will concede that most transport in urban areas for the underprivileged is already heavily subsidized. This year the amount in respect of bus services is R76 million, and in respect of rail tariffs to resettlement areas it is R70 million. That is quite apart from the fact that the total losses with regard to the transport of passengers on the Railways is R485 million. Therefore, let me conclude by saying—and I will have a serious look at this—that I should Eke to ask hon. members to accept the clause as it stands. Let us review the situation. I am quite prepared to come back to this House with this matter, and hon. members know that I do it from time to time. I do not think it is wrong to amend Acts in order to improve them. I shall do that again, but I want to ask hon. members to accept my position in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, how does the hon. the Minister see the position of the employer who gives his employee a company vehicle to go home in and go to work in the next day? Is that legal?

Of course it is legal.

Mr. Chairman, I think the question of the hon. member for Umhlanga in fact points in the direction in which both parties appear to be thinking. I do appreciate what the hon. the Minister is saying. I should like to commend to him an idea which has come to my mind. If he is thinking of creating a freer situation with regard to transport and this is on the cards, he might, in the first instance, like to restrict it purely to people travelling in a motor-car. In other words, he is not going to allow private buses or anything of that kind to go and pick up employees. If it concerns a private motor-car, a pick-up truck, or some small vehicle, there could be no real competition envisaged for a bus company. The hon. member for Langlaagte, who sat on the Road Transportation Commission with me, knows that at the time when we sat on that commission we saw this as a step towards a situation of freer competition in the road transportation industry. I am glad to see that, to a certain extent, the hon. the Minister is regarding this as a step towards freer competition. I should however Eke him to take rather larger steps and perhaps move a little more quickly, because I do believe that there are aspects of our road transportation legislation, particularly in this clause, that are having an inhibiting effect on economic development in South Africa.

The hon. the Minister talks about the economies of scale, and of course this applies, but I do not actually believe that it applies here, because we are talking mainly about people who are going to be transported during rush hours. At the moment, many of our transport systems cannot cope with rush-hour traffic. We lose in every direction on every passenger we carry on our public transport systems throughout South Africa. Ideally, it would be perfect if we could organize for every employer to go and pick up his employees. Then the exchequer would not be faced with the enormous subsidies that exist at present. Inevitably, however, they are going to be faced with the subsidies, because very few people would take advantage of a relaxation of this nature. As the hon. the Minister points out, it is necessary to subsidize, at one level or another, people on both trains and buses. On that basis, we should be very grateful if other people would do it of their own volition.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the hon. the Minister for the attitude which he has adopted to these amendments, and especially to my amendment. With the leave of the House, I am going to withdraw my amendment because of the attitude which the hon. the Minister has adopted. I should Eke to ask him, however, to study what I have put forward, because I honestly believe that it is not too much that I am asking for. I am prepared to accept that the words “point close to the employee’s place of residence”, might be ambiguous, but why not simply alter it to “from the place of residence of the employee”? In that case the place is specifically defined. I accept that the hon. the Minister has extended the provision, something which we welcome. What I have asked for, however, is that when the employer is going out to a job, he should not be forced to tell his employees to come to his office first so that they can be driven from there to the place where they are going to work.

I should like the hon. the Minister to tell him that, when he goes out on a job like that, he can pick up the employees at a place close to where they are going to work. I am sure it will save everybody a great deal of trouble.

But he can apply for that right.

The hon. the Minister says that he can apply for that right. However, the right which he applies for under section 11, I think it is, is the right to operate a regular, daily bus service to take employees from point A to point B.

No.

Does the hon. the Minister then say that any employer can in fact apply for a permit which will entitle him, when he goes out on any particular job, to pick up an employee and take him from point A to point B?

In terms of the law there is nothing barring him from applying for that.

I see. Then if the hon. the Minister would consider my amendment, he would probably find that it would, if accepted, cut out an awful lot of red tape and achieve the same objective he was talking about without endangering the public transportation system as such. I therefore want to withdraw my amendment with the leave of the Committee in the hope that the hon. the Minister will give it consideration in due course.

Amendment moved by Mr. G. S. Bartlett, with leave, withdrawn.

Amendment moved by Mr. R. J. Lorimer negatived (Official Opposition and New Republic Party dissenting).

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4:

Mr. Chairman, clause 4 seeks to limit the right of appeal to the National Transportation Commission to those members of the public or those commuters who have already made their objections to the local Road Transportation Board that originally dealt with the application for higher fares. The justification for this clause that was advanced to some extent by the hon. the Minister and to a greater extent by the hon. member for East London City was to the effect that in the case of courts of law one is required first to exhaust all one’s possible remedies through the courts of first instance before one is allowed to take the matter on appeal. However, I believe that the situation that we are dealing with here is not quite the same as the situation where a matter is brought before a court of law. We are dealing here with the plight of people who, by the mere fact that they use buses and that they are substantially affected by higher bus fares, prove that they are unlikely to have the means or maybe even the expertise to go to the local transportation board with proper legal or other representation to assist and advise them. We are dealing here with a situation in which very often a large section of the public does not know that an application for higher fares is being made and does not know anything, or anything worthwhile, about the procedures or the time limits applicable to such an application.

I believe that, if in such a situation some concerned citizen—and I want to suggest that the hon. the Minister will probably call that sort of citizen an agitator—takes up the matter on behalf of those commuters who are blissfully unaware of the higher fares that have been fixed until it hits them, we should not put anything in the way of that particular person. The hon. the Minister has, in his motivation for clause 5, sung the praises of the existing appeal procedure to the National Transport Commission for the consideration of objections. He has pointed out that such an appeal procedure exists in terms of section 8 of the Act and that it is sufficient. He said a number of very positive things about the procedure. In my view it really does not make sense for the hon. the Minister at the same time to limit the potential use of that very procedure that he advocated in motivating clause 5 as an alternative to approaching the Supreme Court. If the hon. the Minister prefers commuters, or those who represent them, to use the section 8 appeal procedure rather than to go to a court of law, then I believe he must not insist on requirements or procedures applicable to a court of law in such a way as to limit that avenue of objection. I believe this is what clause 4 in fact does.

I believe the hon. the Minister has adopted an unfortunate attitude in his general approach to the matter of bus transport in relation to clauses 4 and 5. I believe this is not the time for limiting procedures either to a court of law or to the National Transport Commission. I believe the hon. the Minister has not, by introducing this Bill—and the present bus boycott proves it—done the bus companies or the commuting public a favour. We seem to be entering a new era and the bus boycott has proven that a sensitive matter—as the hon. the Minister himself called it—such as that of bus fares is not merely a matter concerning the road transportation board or the Government and the bus companies, but one which does affect a lot of citizens. We believe that, if we want to avoid the kind of action that is occurring now, actions such as bus boycotts or even stronger action, then we dare not in this House pass legislation which in any way limits the legitimate and legal procedures for objecting against higher bus fares and for seeking redress on behalf of commuters. For those reasons I believe we should not have clause 4 passed by this House and the hon. members on this side of the House will oppose it.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to add a comment here because I believe that it is actually the attitude of the hon. the Minister which has occasioned our having to take this viewpoint on this clause. In general we believe that it would be fair to narrow down the number of people who may object to the raising of bus fares for example, but we are actually in the hands of the hon. the Minister here in that he lays down the regulations. The regulations could be completely unfair, allowing a very restricted time for people to make objections, or not adequately publicizing an increased tariff so that the average bus user would be totally unaware that he was going to have to pay more until it was a fait accompli.

Perhaps the hon. the Minister would be prepared to give an absolute undertaking that, as regards the regulations that he is going to put forward as a result of this clause, he will make sure that every bus user will have his attention drawn to an application for an increase in tariffs and that he shall have a reasonable time—because the clause just says “within the time prescribed by regulation”—in which to object. There are various ratepayers’ organizations and other organizations which represent consumers which, I believe, have a right to object to this sort of thing. I do not see anything sinister in that, but the hon. the Minister obviously does. If he can give us that undertaking, then I think we can go along with this clause. Unless he is prepared to give us the absolute undertaking that the regulations will be reasonably lax, we will not be able to go along with it. I believe the regulations have to allow people who wish to object, to have time to give long consideration to their objection. I commend this thought to the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I should just like to say a few things in reply to the hon. member for Orange Grove. I agree with what he has just said. For the very reason he has just given … Will the hon. member for Orange Grove please pay attention? I should like to give him the information which he requested.

I am sorry. I have also only been consulting.

I have already instructed the Director-General that the advertising period, which is at present 10 days, should be extended to 21 days, because I think that people ought to receive notice of such an application in time, so that they can prepare themselves properly.

†Therefore I do subscribe to every sentiment expressed by the hon. member for Orange Grove on this particular clause. I do not know whether the hon. member will, under these circumstances, assist me by telling me whether it is still necessary for me to reply to the hon. member for Green Point. I am quite prepared to do so if the hon. member indicates that he wants me to do so.

The hon. the Minister is free to reply if he so wishes.

What is the position now? I do not want us to conduct a series of technical arguments with one another at this stage. All that clause 4 stipulates, is that the hearing by the National Transport Commission—if it is an appeal hearing—should be conducted with the parties who appeared at the original hearing before the Road Transportation Board either as the applicant or as the objector. The hon. member for Green Point is, after all, a lawyer. I want to submit, in all fairness, that surely he would not claim that he would appear before the Appeal Court with new evidence. Surely he goes to the Appeal Court with the original record of the particular case. All that this clause stipulates is that a person who appeals against a ruling by the Road Transportation Board should either be an applicant for a permit, or a permit holder; in other words, a person who has made representations in support of or against the application concerned. Therefore all that is implied here is that the hearing of the particular application or objection cannot commence, except if the Transport Commission itself allows the hearing to be held. Surely this is a reasonable standpoint. It has to be, otherwise, surely, we shall never have certainty on these things. Then, surely, it is fair neither to the user nor to the permit holder.

Now the hon. member for Green Point argues that it is precisely this which causes the boycotts. Surely this is not correct. Surely the provisions of clause 4, which are about to amend section 8 of the main Act, are not the cause of the boycotts. Boycotts take place in any case, regardless of this.

I never said that.

The hon. member argues that it is this attitude that has caused the boycotts to take place. The fact of the matter is that because of certain actions and because of boycotts, we have over a period of almost six months—as a matter of fact, I put this to hon. members—increased subsidies by R12,7 million.

In conclusion I should like to point out that I agree with the hon. member for Orange Grove. Consequently I have already made provision for the period of notice to be extended so that each person who is affected would have a better opportunity either to support or to fight a particular application. This includes applications for an increase in tariffs. Consequently they will now be able to formulate their case properly. I request, therefore, that we now accept things as they are.

Mr. Chairman, I must point out to the hon. the Minister that he has only himself to blame that we took the attitude, in the first instance, of opposing this Bill. That was because it appeared to us that the hon. the Minister was equating the provisions of this clause with the technicalities that, he said, were used by people who were objecting to tariff increases in Cape Town. If that is not so, I still have to state that I would be happier about this clause if the hon. the Minister was prepared to reject clause 5 completely.

But I cannot do that.

I know, however, that he is not going to do that, but I hope he is going to alter those regulations, ensure that they get a longer period of time and also—and this is very important—ensure that the matter is publicized, not only in appeals to the National Transport Commission, but also a decision of a road transportation board at a lower level. I think that if one takes people into one’s confidence at an early stage, if one tells them what one intends to do, giving them a reasonable motivation for what is being done—and “reasonable motivation” would be something like increases in petroleum fuel costs, etc.—people would be more inclined to go along with a decision one might make. If people feel, however, that one has sneaked up behind their backs and done something unpleasant to them, that is the time one runs a very grave risk of boycotts. I believe that is, to a certain extent, why we are having these very unfortunate boycotts today on a very sensitive issue.

I anticipated your point.

The hon. the Minister says he anticipated my point. On that basis we shall not object to the clause.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 5:

Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment printed in my name on page 178 of the Order Paper, as follows—

Mr. Chairman, I rise in the hope that between myself and my colleagues in these benches we can persuade the hon. the Minister not to proceed with this clause. We do so because we believe that the present situation, with the difficulties it might cause to both the bus companies and the Government, is nevertheless a more desirable procedure than the one envisaged in this clause. What is more, in the particularly sensitive times in which we find ourselves at present, with the whole question of bus fares, bus subsidies and bus boycotts, taking away what will be seen to be a right of the bus commuters, in favour of the rights of the bus owners, would be an unfortunate step on the part of this Government. As soon as a court action or judgment is pending, clearly there is an element of risk for both the parties involved. The rights of the bus company are at risk pending the judgment, and the rights of commuters are also at risk pending the judgment, whatever it may be.

This all arises out of the events of last year when, following a hearing of the local road transportation board, there was court orders that firstly held that the matter should be reviewed and, secondly, suspended the bus fare increases that had been given.

Let us look at the conditions under which such an order, interdict or review by a court can be made applicable. It cannot be done on the basis of an error of judgment, or difference in the matter of judgment or opinion of a local transportation board or the National Transportation Commission. As in the case of September of last year involving the local transportation board, it was only possible because the court found that there was an irregularity in the procedures, in fact to such an extent that the commuters might be prejudiced unless the matter were reviewed. So it is not a question of judgment. It is a question of whether the procedures laid down in the Act have, in the opinion of the court, been properly complied with in the interests of all the parties concerned. This is, in the first instance, a limiting factor. Secondly it must be shown that people have a clear right and that their rights as individuals or users have directly been affected. It has to be shown that they as people have a clear right. Before they can get an interdict they have to satisfy the court that they have a likelihood of succeeding in the action that they bring before the court. Finally they have to show that the course that could be adopted, if there were no interdict or court proceedings, would result in irreparable prejudice for which an order for damages would not be a remedy. In other words, one cannot have a post hoc situation which an order for damages would not remedy. It is necessary, therefore, to freeze the fares so that the relevant situation can be dealt with. Clearly it can be argued that a bus company could be prejudiced for the period during which this court action is pending.

It could also be that as a result of that court action the final decisions are changed or adjusted and that the bus company might well have enriched itself had the original decision stood at the time it was given. Equally, if the bus company could be prejudiced as a result of a delay in getting its bus increases, so also could members of the public if they were required to pay immediately and their appeal to the courts was successful subsequently. While it is possible, although it may have to be through the generous hand of the Government, to resolve the bus companies’ problems as the hon. the Minister has done by increasing the subsidy for bus fares during the period during which the court order was operative …

It was a subsidy for the commuters.

At that time the bus fares were reduced to the old fares.

But it is still for the commuters.

Here we have two sets of people who could be prejudiced. On the one hand there is the bus company. If they are prejudiced, this could be resolved. I do not say that the Minister may want to resolve it, but the Minister could redress the bus company’s grievance by seeing that the shortfall was made good. On the other hand there are the commuters. If they have been overcharged for three or four months, it means that if at the end of the period it is found that the bus fares were incorrect or if judgment is given in favour of the commuters, there is no way of redressing the losses which have been suffered by the commuters. We concede that on the one hand it is a question of a balance between the interests of the bus company versus the interests of the commuters. But it must also be seen against this background: Can one remedy the one and can one remedy the other? It is quite impossible to remedy the losses sustained by the hundreds of thousands of commuters if over a period of time they have paid a fare in excess of that which they should legally be required to pay.

We see this situation as a balance of interests, and because we believe the balance of interests in this case should rest with the commuters, we believe the clause should be negatived.

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend taking up a lot of time on this clause, because I have dealt with it in great length during the Second Reading debate. I think I made our point very clear then. Furthermore I think the hon. member for Sea Point has also dealt with some of the reservations and fears we have in regard to this clause. I should, however, like to say to the hon. the Minister once again that I believe he could have achieved in other ways the objectives he wants to achieve.

How?

The hon. the Minister wants to know how. As I said during the Second Reading debate, through better financial planning on the part of the bus companies. For example, they could anticipate possible delays when they submit their applications for tariff increases. The hon. the Minister can also take a good look at the whole Act and remove or amend, any technicalities which have been used in the past and which tend to extend the hearings and appeals to the detriment of the bus companies. I think he can also look at all other avenues of reducing delays in an attempt to ensure that the bus companies are not prejudiced as a result of an appeal against a tariff increase.

The hon. the Minister knows our feelings about this matter and I merely want to say that we shall vote against this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to take up just as little of the Committee’s time. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti described the real dilemma, i.e. that various parties are involved in an application of this nature. But we must look after the interests of everyone. It is also true that we are in most cases dealing with conflicting interests. Therefore, we are in actual fact engaged in an act of reconciliation. What are the rights of persons involved in an application? In the first place they are entitled to go to court, not in respect of the substance of the application for tariffs, but its procedure, as was said by the hon. member for Sea Point. The other course they could follow is to appeal on the basis of the merits of the application. This is precisely what I want the hon. member for Sea Point to understand. It could therefore be concerned with the merits of an application. A party may feel that the Road Transportation Board has taken a wrong decision in respect of the merits of the application, and that is why I want to explain this. If he feels that the Road Transportation Board has approved a higher tariff than is justified by the evidence, his legal recourse is to appeal to the National Transportation Commission. If he thinks that a mistake has been made in laying down the tariffs—we are discussing only this specific aspect—his right of appeal is not to a court, for the court does not have that jurisdiction, but to the National Transportation Commission, which does have the jurisdiction. This amendment in clause 5 does not prejudice any aggrieved person’s right to appeal, nor that of the bus company if it thinks that the determination was too low. Therefore I maintain that hon. members are making a mistake in this specific regard by creating the impression in their arguments that the courts were entitled to intervene in the merit decisions of the road transportation boards. The courts have never had this right. In other words the appeal does not pertain to the level of the tariffs. Does the hon. member agree with me?

I shall reply.

The right of appeal in respect of the merits of the application is to the National Transportation Commission. The courts do not have a right to hear an appeal on the merits of the case but only on the non-compliance with the provisions of the Act in respect of the procedure that has to be followed. Surely this is correct.

But then the wrong procedure was followed, because it led to a wrong decision.

The fact is that it cannot happen as the hon. member is arguing. I want to take the matter further. Hon. members must understand that this provision has nothing to do with the right of appeal on merit. Nor does it have anything to do with the court’s authority to amend, for the court’s right to amend the tariff is not affected by the clause in question. What does happen is that the court has to give a final decision before the decision has an effect on the tariff. That is all that is stated here.

But let us confine ourselves for a moment to the bus tariffs, for this is what is really at issue. The hon. member said that two parties were involved and that this could be prejudicial to both. However, the position is—I think the hon. member will agree with me on this point as well—that the people we are referring to are principally the regular passengers of public transport services, and this implies that if the tariff which is laid down is too high, not only in an amending case, but also in an appeal case—the hon. member is not arguing about appeals which are really based on the merits of the case—the fact that the people are already paying too much is taken into account when future tariffs are laid down. Let me repeat that. For the first time we have now succeeded in convincing the Treasury that it is responsible for the deficit on the Railway passenger services, and that is why I am taking such exception to the allegations that we are ostensibly treating people’s rights contemptuously. For the first time the Railways is receiving this year a further R171 million in respect of its passenger services, principally for the large number of 650 million commuters in the urban areas only, over and above the payment of R70 million this year for resettlement services and the principle has also been accepted that we must be compensated for all avoidable costs. Surely this testifies to sympathy for these people. Surely I have a responsibility towards all people. I do not only have a responsibility towards some people.

Now I just want to tell hon. members, and I want to conclude with this, that I am not going to withdraw this clause. I hope that it is published for a change that the right of appeal to the commission in respect of the merits of the application has never been prejudiced, is not being prejudiced and what is more that it is not the intention to prejudice it either. The right of any party involved in an application to the courts for an amendment has not been prejudiced, is not being prejudiced and nor are we envisaging that it should be prejudiced. All the clause is saying is that the court’s finding must be a final one before it is put into effect. I say this is fair.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister is only partly right in his argument that the court cannot in any way touch the value or the merit judgment of the Road Transportation Board or the National Transport Commission. It is correct that it cannot judge on a valuation that is made, but what it can judge is on whether it has adopted the procedures which would lead to its coming to the correct judgment.

But I said that.

Somebody who goes to the court to ask for an interdict has actually got to prove that he will be prejudiced unless the correct procedures are followed. Therefore, while the court cannot attack the value judgment, it can say that if one follows the procedures which one intends following or which one has followed, it will so prejudice, alter or change one’s judgment that one will come with the wrong judgment. So, in the case of last year’s local Road Transportation Board, it was argued that sufficient notice was not given and that the people who would have come along and objected had not had the opportunity to object because of the shortness of notice or because of the nature of the notice. The courts then held that had they been given that time, a different award or a different decision might have been given. Therefore the hon. the Minister is correct to the extent that one cannot attack the value judgment, but what one can say is that this particular commission is adopting procedures which will lead it to come to the wrong value judgment. And that is what this is all about.

But that right is not being taken away from them.

Therefore, if in fact the wrong procedures have been followed and if these procedures lead to the wrong value judgment, the wrong value judgment of fares will nevertheless obtain throughout this period until the matter is reviewed. But the hon. the Minister says that that decision must stand. We are arguing, and the hon. the Minister is conceding it, that as a result of the procedures it can lead to the wrong value judgment.

In both cases.

This is what we are saying. If in fact the court says that the procedures which one is adopting are wrong and are prejudicial to the bus user and that they can result in one having come to a wrong value judgment on fares, then surely it is unreasonable that the fares based on a wrong value judgment should stand effective until the matter is reviewed. We believe it is fundamental that, if one has persuaded the court that the procedures are wrong and that one’s rights are prejudiced, one should not have to abandon one’s rights in the interim until this matter has been resolved. We understand the argument of the hon. the Minister, but he starts from the conclusion that there was nothing wrong in the procedures. We want to know what happens if the procedures are indeed wrong. We should like the hon. the Minister to reply in that regard. If the procedures are in fact shown to be wrong to the extent that the court believes that that could have prejudiced the final decision, what case can be made out for the wrong decision standing while the whole matter is reviewed?

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the argument of the hon. member for Sea Point in regard to the whole question of the technical points of law as opposed to judgment on the basis of merit. I want to say, as I have already said in the Second Reading, that often some aggrieved person or a representative of aggrieved commuters may need the assistance of the court to return the situation to the status quo before the fares were fixed in order to be in a position to fight his case properly, particularly in the case where a person has failed to lodge an objection to the Road Transportation Board. This applies particularly in view of the fact that we have now approved clause 4, which limits the right of appeal to the National Transportation Commission to those people who in fact have already objected or applied to the local Transportation Board. If the objection that is brought to the Supreme Court is based on inadequate notice—and of course one takes note with appreciation of the fact that the hon. the Minister said that the procedures would be improved in this regard and that longer notice would be given—and there is therefore a case to be made out that the particular person did not know that the application was going to be brought, or where and when it was going to be brought, and that for that reason he was in no position to fight it, he will, in terms of clause 4, be in no position to take the matter on appeal to the National Transport Commission.

He can take it on review.

Yes, he can then only take it on review. That is precisely the point. Such a person’s obvious avenue of objection is then to the Supreme Court. If that is so, if that is the only correct procedure for that person to follow in view of the fact that there has been inadequate notice given and that he has suffered as a result of that inadequate notice, why should that individual, or commuters in general, suffer through having to pay higher fares in favour of the bus company if those fares are subsequently found to have been improperly fixed? I honestly cannot see why that should be the case. I can understand that more than one party is involved and that someone stands to suffer in one way or another, but as I have indicated already, I believe that the transport operator is most probably in a better position to minimize the loss that is suffered than the body of commuters. We are facing a bus boycott at this point in time. It is something which seems to have started only yesterday, but it could become very serious. It could affect bus companies and public transport very materially. I believe that in many ways it is an unfortunate situation. Pleas are made for all sorts of things which in my view are not necessarily relevant and do not necessarily provide solutions. There has, for instance, been a plea for the nationalization of the City Tramways Company in Cape Town and other privately owned companies.

We can discuss that in the Third Reading.

Yes. I want to say here and now that I do not believe that to be a solution at all. However, we do find ourselves in a serious situation. I believe that to limit, at this point in time, any legitimate existing avenue of objection to fares or of making representations to bring fares down or to maintain them at a lower level, could only serve to aggravate that situation. It is a desperate situation. What must people who are in two minds in regard to backing or not backing a bus boycott, people who do not feel so strongly about it that they would actually go along with it but who are nevertheless considering some sort of action, think if they read in the newspapers or hear over the radio that at this very point in time we in this Parliament are passing legislation which will further limit the already limited existing avenues of objection or protest to higher bus fares? I believe it is an ill-timed Bill. Possibly the hon. the Minister can hardly be blamed for that, as he may not have known what was coming, but I believe it is very unwise to take this step.

Did you know what was coming?

No, I did not, but even so I believe that if the bus boycott does anything, it will prove that the fixing of bus fares is no longer a cosy matter between some board or committee, a bus company and maybe one or two meek objectors. People are taking very strong action about this. People feel very strongly about it. If we do not indicate to them at this stage that there are proper procedures to be followed for satisfying their grievances in this regard, I think we will be taking enormous chances and we are being immensely unwise.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal with a matter relating to this clause which is slightly different from the matter with which my hon. colleague has dealt. It has to do with the supremacy of the Supreme Court.

The hon. the Minister has proposed an amendment to this clause. I want to tell the hon. the Minister that we are not going to support his amendment, because I believe that, without that amendment, the clause allows for a certain latitude for an interdict by the Supreme Court, a latitude which perhaps brings the supremacy back to the Supreme Court.

But will you accept the clause without my amendment?

No, I would not accept it either way, but I think it would be better without the hon. the Minister’s amendment.

The point I want to make is that I believe that our Supreme Court does not issue interdicts lightly. I believe that the Supreme Court is a highly responsible body that can be trusted to do the right thing in respect of an application for an interdict. I believe it has done so here in Cape Town in the recent past. I do not believe that advantage was taken of technicalities, for the reasons advanced by my hon. colleagues. I cannot accept a clause that says that the Supreme Court shall have no cause and effect and will be unable to do anything immediate in certain circumstances.

There are a variety of things that could happen—some of them have been mentioned by my hon. colleagues—which might make it an urgent necessity to have an interdict to restrain the National Transport Commission. One has only to put one’s imagination to work, which I will not do, to think of the possibilities. The hon. the Minister must know that there are all sorts of possibilities. If we do not have a Supreme Court that is supreme and can say that something must stop for this, that or the other reason, I believe that we are making nonsense of our legal system. I want to say to the hon. the Minister who is, after all, a lawyer, that I am very surprised indeed that he should allow a clause such as this to become part of the Bill.

[Inaudible.]

He should take this clause out.

He is looking remarkably placid at the moment, but I really feel that he should give consideration to this. We are dealing with our Supreme Court. I cannot think of any other provision in legislation in respect of which an interdict of the Supreme Court will have no cause and effect. Perhaps the hon. the Minister can tell me whether we are setting a precedent here. I am not a lawyer, but he is.

It is obvious that you are not a lawyer.

Then perhaps he can go further, because he obviously is a lawyer. Perhaps he can tell me what is wrong with my argument and why it is necessary in this case that the Supreme Court, which in every other instance is supreme, should not be supreme in terms of the National Transport Commission. I accept that there is an area for review by the Supreme Court and that in the final analysis the Supreme Court can be the arbiter, but we are discussing the situation in the interim and I believe that the hon. the Minister should reconsider the matter. I do not know whether he can amend this clause, because it is so bad basically that it would be difficult to improve

One could drive a truck through it.

At the very least, will he not agree to drop his amendment in order to allow an interdict, because, as I said, it is not granted lightly? I ask the hon. the Minister to react to that.

Mr. Chairman, I make an appeal to the hon. the Minister as a lawyer on behalf of all lawyers. We are touching upon a fundamental principle of justice in this clause. It is fundamental to the nature of law and to the rights of every person who has free access to the courts, which everybody in South Africa has. We are interfering with the basic principle of interdicts which is an inherent right of the Supreme Court.

In the time of Justinian interdicts were in operation. In the time of Van der Linden, in the 18th century in Holland, the idea of interdicts was discussed and it was written into Roman-Dutch law and followed by our South African courts. The hon. the Minister is interfering with a fundamental principle of law. If one takes away that right, a precedent will be created in South African law which other legislation will follow later. That principle giving the people the right to apply to a court for an interdict to redress a wrong will be eaten away.

There are three fundamental principles in law which are laid down before one can get an interdict. Firstly, the person must have a clear right; secondly, there must be an iniuria of some kind; and, thirdly, there must be a reasonable prospect of the matter succeeding. In other words, there is no other ordinary remedy available.

I think that is a very reasonable request. [Interjections.]

On the question of clear right, Nathan, in The Book on Interdicts, says—

So on that basis, with these fundamental principles, the judge will not grant an interdict unless these prerequisites are available. A court just will not uphold an increased bus fare because John Jones asks the court to do so. He must make a prima facie case. He must comply with the basic provisions in law before the court can even grant an interdict, because it is not going to grant it lightly, knowing what the implications are, but it will appreciate that, when a prima facie case is made, pending a final judgment, the redress cannot be put right because all the increased fares paid by the commuters before final judgment can never be refunded. The commuters will have paid to their detriment. Is it not better to have it that way? Is it not better not to have the increase in order to protect the commuters? My appeal is not aimed so much at the merits of transport or increased fares but it is that the hon. the Minister, as a lawyer, should not interfere with the basic principle of justice whereby people have an inherent right to apply to a court for an interdict. If that right is taken away here, it will erode the basic principles of law.

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise an objection to the arguments put forward by hon. members.

†Let me use the argument of the hon. member for Orange Grove, who said that I am taking away the right of supremacy of the courts. That is not true.

Chairman directed to report progress and ask leave to sit again.

House Resumed:

Progress reported and leave granted to sit again.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Speaker, I move—

In order to further regulate the metrication of certain concepts in the Act, it has become necessary to substitute for the expressions “proof”, “proof spirits” and “proof strength”, wherever they appear in the Act, the expression “alcohol by volume”. For instance, the production quotas of wine farmers will in future be shown as a volume of wine of a strength of 10% alcohol by volume.

Up to now wine used for the manufacture of pot still brandy has had the prior approval of the Government Brandy Board. In future the wine will no longer be approved by the board, but the board will lay down standards with which such wine must comply, which standards will be published in the Gazette for general information. No reduction in the quality of pot still brandy is envisaged in this step, because the final brandy product still has to be approved by the Government Brandy Board. Proper control will nevertheless be exercised over the wine. At the same time, penalties are being increased considerably to discourage non-compliance with the standards laid down for such wine.

Provision is also being made for a further category of spirit which is described in the Bill as “grape spirit”. The alcohol content of this product will be higher than that of pot still brandy but lower than that of pure wine spirit. In addition, this new product will also retain certain characteristics of the grape. The industry has decided after consultation that the present minimum requirement of 25% pot still brandy content of brandy mixtures will in future be increased to a minimum of 30%. It is anticipated that this amendment will bring about a further improvement in the quality of South African brandies.

In order to adapt current practices the broad category “wine spirit” with a minimum strength of 60% alcohol by volume will now be divided into two categories, viz. on the one hand, wine spirit with a strength of at least 95% alcohol by volume and, on the other hand, wine spirit with a minimum strength of 60% but not exceeding 92% alcohol by volume.

Hon. members may possibly have noticed that wine is presently being marketed in a variety of new types and packagings. It is essential that control of packaging at producer level should also keep pace with the developments. It is therefore necessary for provision to be made in the Bill under discussion that amounts which producers have to add in respect of different packagings to the minimum wine price, can in future be determined on a differential basis as the type of packaging dictates.

These additions could in the past only be determined at the beginning of the year and could not be adjusted in the course of the year regardless of cost changes. It is now proposed, however, that these additions, after publication in the Gazette for objections and consideration, may be changed during the course of a year.

The Act presently provides that a surcharge on the minimum price of wine must be made in the case of sales of wine by a wine farmer or co-operative to the public. Amendments contained in the Bill set out clearly the manner in which such surcharges shall be determined.

The Act also provides that a wine producer must add transport costs to the minimum price of wine which he sells to the public in cases where wine is delivered to a place other than the place at which it was produced. In some cases, however, before it is sold to the public, producers transport wine to their depots which are situated far from the place of production. It has therefore become necessary to prescribe transport costs which shall be recovered from the purchaser in such a case over and above the minimum price of the wine.

When a wine producer sells wine in bottles, flasks or other containers to liquor dealers, inter alia, he is obliged to add an amount in respect of packaging to the minimum price of the wine. It does happen, in practice, however, that certain dealers purchase wine from wine farmers and cooperatives in wholesale quantities at the prescribed minimum price and then enter into a separate agreement with such wine farmer or co-operative for the bottling of the wine purchased. In the Bill provision is now being made that such a service in regard to bottling can only take place with the consent of the KWV.

The Act already provides that a levy shall be paid to the KWV on good wine which is sold to the public by a wine farmer or co-operative. Provision is now being made that the levy shall also be payable in the case of the sale of grapes, moskonfyt, grape juice, raisins or sultanas by a wine farmer to another wine farmer. Such sales call for a considerable amount control which in the nature of things involves expenditure by the KWV. Consequently, there is this proposal to impose a levy on these transactions as well.

Chapter III of the Act, which is only applicable to the Deciduous Fruit Board, can now be deleted because the board has for some time not produced any wine, or dealt with it, and it is not expected to do so in the future.

Section 51 of the Act provides, inter alia, that the KWV may apply so much of the money in the Wine Research and Advertising Account as the Minister may from time to time approve for advertising and research in respect of viticulture. An adjustment of these provisions has now become necessary to provide for the expenditure of these moneys for economic research and technical and economic extension services as well. Care will be taken to ensure that there is no overlapping of services rendered by the department to wine farmers.

The amendment which relates to the further category of spirit, viz. “grape spirit”, will ensure that the Wine, Other Fermented Beverages and Spirits Act of 1957 is adapted accordingly.

Consultation has taken place with both the KWV and the liquor trade as well as interested departments in the framing of this proposed legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the Bill is of a very technical nature. It contains no new principles, except the proposed new section 22(2), which enlarges slightly on the KWV’s power to impose levies. We support the second reading, and I am going to restrict myself to the most important amendments contained in the Bill. However, one cannot talk about wine and spirits without mentioning the KWV. Since 1922, the KWV has gradually obtained an ever stronger hold on the liquor industry by way of legislation. Ultimately, as a result of the amalgamation of Distillers, Stellenbosch Farmers’ Winery and the KWV itself, this increasing hold and control by the KWV has resulted in what I shall refer to as a cartel that has virtually complete control over the industry today. One wonders if all these measures contained in the legislation, particularly clause 4 and clause 5 are really necessary under the new conditions. However, as I said, there are no new principles involved in this legislation. The provisions are merely of a technical nature. That is why I shall simply refer to a few of the changes.

Technical progress in the industry has made it necessary to grant recognition to five classes of spirits. In clause 2 we see that at the moment, the Act only provides for three classes, viz. pot still brandy, brandy—a mixture of pot still brandy and other spirit— and wine spirit with at least 60% alcohol by volume. The new classes that are now being provided for, are wine spirit with 95% alcohol by volume, and grape spirit. To date, the Brandy Board has had to approve of all wine used in the manufacture of spirits and brandy. If the amendment is accepted, it will only be necessary for the board to set standards. One can accept that inspection by the Brandy Board is time consuming and that is why setting standards and requirements is acceptable to us.

Due to inflation and particularly to the high price of alcohol, the increased penalties are also acceptable to us.

Clause 3, like many other proposed amendments contained in the Bill, deals with metrication and that is why it is also acceptable to us.

With the approval of the Minister, the KWV can determine the minimum price at which a farmer of cellar can sell wine. It often happens that a wine cellar undertakes to bottle the wine or to package it in other containers too. Section 18 of the Act provides that the packaging material must be included in the price of the wine. In the nature of things, it will be impossible to give an exact definition of every form and type of packaging. Therefore, provision must be made for the modifications to be made during the course of the year with regard to the amount that must be added to the minimum price, should the wine be sold at a minimum price. Transport costs often increase during the course of a year and that is why transport costs must also be included in the price of the wine if it must be delivered to a place other than where the wine is produced.

Whilst wine that is sold in bulk, is subject to the minimum price, as determined by the KWV, it has, however, happened from time to time, that the seller bottles the wine for the buyer free of charge. The wine is delivered to the sellers, but the service that is provided in bottling the wine, costs money. To ensure that the price, particularly the minimum price of the wine is not being evaded in this way, section 18A provides that this service cannot be provided without the permission of the KWV. Although one may not be in favour of determining a minimum price, in view of the principle that is already contained in the Act, one must support the amendment.

Section 22(2) has thus far provided that a levy on wine is payable to the KWV according to a tariff announced in the Gazette from time to time. The new addition deals with imposing a levy on wine, grapes, grape-juice and other products referred to in section 20(2)(b). Section 20(2)(b) now provides that the levy that has been referred to above, may also be included in the minimum price of all products that one farmer sells to another for the manufacture of wine. The hon. the Minister has referred to this. I actually wanted to ask a question about this in order to establish for what purpose the levy is to be used, but that question has already been answered. In actual fact, the levy is merely used for administrative purposes. The amount that is added accordingly, is therefore acceptable to us too. To my mind, the most important amendment is the one in clause 10. To date, the KWV has been able to use money in the Wine Research and Advertising Account for technical research only or for financing technical research. In terms of the proposed amendment, this money can also be used for research into economic aspects in future, and to provide guidance related to such research to interested parties. The same also applies to research into wine production. The amendment provides that the hon. the Minister must grant his approval of such research projects. We support this motion for the application of funds on a much wider front. With rising costs throughout the industry, research in all spheres is of cardinal importance, particularly research that can lead and contribute towards economizing and greater efficiency in the industry. It is particularly for that reason that we support the motion. I am also pleased to see that the research projects that will be undertaken, have to obtain the approval of a coordinating body, the Minister in this case, because there is always the danger of research in the agricultural industry and in viticulture being duplicated, and this will not be to the benefit of anyone. Although we usually censure excessive ministerial approval, it is acceptable in this case.

The factual state of affairs is—the hon. the Minister also referred to this—that the Deciduous Fruit Board no longer has any pressing facilities. Clause 8 provides that chapter III of the principal Act, which determines the relationship between the KWV and the Deciduous Fruit Board, be repealed. It is a sensible amendment, and we have no quarrel with it either.

Clauses 14 and 15 relate to Act 25 of 1957. They contain consequential amendments and also have our approval.

Mr. Speaker, it really is a privilege for me to be able to participate at last in a debate in the House on wine and wine spirits. In a certain sense the Bill contains amendments of a purely technical nature, but it also contains clauses that are practical in nature and as such, are of basic interest to the wine industry in general. To begin with, I want to emphasize that all these amendments took place with the knowledge and approval of all the producing parties in question in the wine industry, i.e. the wine farmer himself, the KWV and the wholesale liquor trade.

The technical aspects of the Bill deal chiefly with the final implementation of metrication in the wine industry at the producers’ level. There are several clauses that deal with that and that need no further comment. However, I just want to say that in all cases where the minimum wine price is now being determined according to the percentage of alcohol by volume and production quotas are also being determined according to the percentage of alcohol by volume, the wine farmer is not being adversely affected. In clause 3, the quantity of wine products that a person must sell before he can qualify as a wholesaler, is being amended, and in doing so wholesale trade is not being adversely effected either.

Then I should like to single out a few of the clauses and deal with them, clauses that are more specifically of interest to the wine industry in general. First of all I refer to clause 2, which the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Wynberg have dealt with in detail. It actually deals with five categories of wine spirits, which are very clearly defined and for the first time are being in the industry. I want to emphasize that the amendments in clause 2 are chiefly aimed at achieving three basic objectives in the presentation of South African brandy: By further increasing and developing the special character and quality of South African brandy, by extending the presentation of wine spirits in order to capture a larger section of the total spirits market and in doing so to develop further the long term economic stability of the wine industry.

In clause 4, an amendment is being moved with regard to the basis of loading the prices of wine of the wine farmer who sells directly to the public and the procedure of being able to determine packaging costs at any time throughout the year. The aim of this provision is to ensure that the person who markets wine himself does not sell it to producers at prices lower than the minimum price that all dealers are obliged to pay for their wine purchases. The essential matter is to ensure that the direct marketers at least add the full cost of their packaging to the minimum price of wine. Packaging costs remain one of the greatest single bottlenecks in the wine industry. Consequently, it is of the greatest importance that there should be a new development in this sphere, but then it is also essential for control to keep pace with those new developments and that contributions can be adjusted over the years to further new trends in packaging. This amendment is therefore in the interest of the wine industry in general.

In conclusion I want to deal with the clauses that are of direct, even basic importance to the wine farmer. In clause 10, the power of the KWV to impose a levy, known as an advertising and research levy, is being expanded to include research into economic matters, information concerning such research and guidance in connection with viticulture in general. This amendment was requested by the wine farmers at a viticulturalists conference, and with good reason. Since the sharp increase in production costs is in the process of eliminating the profitability of the producer, the producer cannot unfortunately be fully compensated for this increase by way of an increased price for his product. The price of his product must remain within the reach of the consumer.

The only way in which the producer will be able to manage in future, is by efficient production, without causing production costs to increase. The producer will have to give attention to certain factors, for instance the use of improved plant material in order to push up unit yield without causing production expenditure to increase. The cultivar that is adapted to the conditions in question —soil and climate—on the long term, must be carefully chosen and there must be an expected market for it. Another factor is the application of sound principles in the financing and management of one’s business, and the application of technically correct practices in the establishment and cultivation of the vineyards. Traditionally, this task was carried out by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, but due to the increasing need for specialized guidance for the wine farmer, the KWV has discussed this bottleneck with the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. It was then agreed that the KWV would appoint a team of guidance officers to provide this service to the wine farmer in close liaison with the Department of Agriculture and the Research Institute for Viticulture and Oenology. I want to emphasize that the practical functioning of this liaison committee illustrates that there does not have to be an overlapping, but a complementation of guidance and services. I want to thank the hon. the Minister of Agriculture for allowing the wine farmer to help himself in this respect. In the times in which we are living, self-help remains a praiseworthy task.

I want to conclude by referring to a new provision in clause 7(b), a provision that is of basic importance for the wine farmer in the future. In terms of this clause, the right which the KWV had by statute to impose a levy on distilling wine, is now being enlarged on in principle in order to apply to good wine too. Recently the KWV imposed an investment levy, on its members which was calculated according to grape production for wine making purposes in order to finance a portion of its share in CWD or Cape Wine. This method of financing was agreed upon at a meeting on 27 November 1979, which was attended by more than 1 000 wine farmers. I believe this is an ideal opportunity to convey our gratitude and sincere appreciation to the hon. the Prime Minister and the hon. members of his Cabinet on behalf of the KWV and the wine farmers of our country in this House for their understanding in approving of the founding of Cape Wine. Apart from the establishment of the CWD, the founding of Cape Wine is the most important single milestone in the history of the wine industry in our country. I believe that the establishment of Cape Wine has solved three structural, but basic problems in the liquor trade. It has effectively divided beer interests and wine and spirits interests within the same power group. It has effectively put an end to the feared integration of retail and wholesale trade. It has given the wine farmer an effective say in the marketing of his product in South Africa for the first time. I believe that the restructuring of the liquor trade has introduced a new dispensation for the wine farmer, the retail and wholesale liquor trader, but particularly for the consumer too. I want to mention two reasons only in support of this statement. An increasingly independent retail trade is going to become an increasing asset for the consumer, as a result of heavier competition and consequently more efficient service. Kaapwyn and its two subsidiaries do not form a wine monopoly. They are experiencing heavy competition from 25 existing independent wholesalers, 69 co-operative cellars, and 38 estate owners who supply directly to the retail trade and the public. The market share of Cape Wine in the various products gives a very clear indication of the extent of the competition. Cape Wine’s share is: 76% with regard to wine and 74% with regard to spirits. Therefore, Kaapwyn definitely does not form a wine monopoly, but on the contrary, it can expect strong competition in future.

I hereby want to say that I support this Bill wholeheartedly. I am convinced that it is in the interest of the wine farmer and the wine industry as a whole.

Mr. Speaker, we in these benches shall support the Second Reading of the Bill. The matter has already been discussed in the Other Place and has come to us from the Other Place with an amendment. Our members there dealt with it in considerable detail. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I was told two things when I first came here. One was that under no circumstances must one attempt or ever be thought to be an economist. I think I have succeeded in avoiding that fate. The other one was that unless one came from the Western Cape, one should never attempt to understand anything about the KWV or the liquor industry. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that I have only just recently moved to the Western Cape, and if he gives me a couple of years, I shall be able to talk to him with a great deal of authority.

And maturity!

Yes, rich Old Brown maturity. The hon. member for Ceres has just mentioned the rationalization which has just taken place in the liquor industry. I think that the last word has not yet been said on this and that we would be wise not to commit ourselves too heavily by saying that it is going to be a brilliant success, and so on. I think there are many pitfalls along the way which in future will require the attention of this House in order to be ironed out. I can understand the hon. member’s enthusiasm. He is somebody who is intimately connected with the industry here. I hope it turns out the way he has suggested, but my own instinct tells me that when a very large group comes together like this, a number of pitfalls may well occur along the way.

I just want to give the hon. the Minister a word of warning. We have been hearing all about the wine industry in the Western Cape. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister has noticed that during the course of this session an undercurrent has been created by hon. members from the Transvaal who are punting the attractions and the advantages of another sort of liquor. In the Other Place the hon. member for Potgietersrus and others tried to persuade the hon. the Minister of Finance to lift all the restrictions in respect of people who distill another sort of liquor called “mampoer”. I want to say to the hon. the Minister that he must be on his guard for this sudden new move in the liquor industry.

Resist it!

The hon. the Minister himself is a Transvaaler. But I do not want to perpetuate this Transvaal-Cape thing which has been going on for so long. We shall support the Second Reading of this Bill.

Mr. Speaker, before I reply to hon. members’ speeches, I want to thank the hon. Chief Whip of the official Opposition as well as the chief spokesman of the official Opposition on agricultural matters, the hon. member for Wynberg …

Just send the wine that you promised.

… for allowing this Bill to pass through all three stages this evening. [Interjections.] The spirit in this Bill obviously facilitates its smooth passage.

*The hon. member for Wynberg made a study of the matter. He adopted a positive approach because this Bill is to the benefit of the wine industry. All the interested parties —commerce, the KWV and the wine farmers—asked for this amendment to be effected. This Bill is primarily concerned with metrication. Therefore, I thank hon. member for their support.

The hon. member for Ceres is the vice-chairman of the KWV and a respected wine farmer. When I was still a Deputy Minister, and since I became the Minister, the hon. member and his people have always considered each draft Bill very thoroughly. They would argue for hours about the semantics. For that reason, every Bill that I introduce in Parliament, has been well-drafted and presents very few problems. I want to thank the hon. member for his insight into the industry.

What do they say about a quota?

I also want to agree with the hon. member for Mooi River. He has said that the KWV has now secured an interest in the whole spectrum of the retail business, and, like the hon. member for Ceres, I think it is high time that the farmer should get a say in the retail business. It all depends on how we are going to handle it in future. He says one can never understand the KWV or the wine industry unless one lives here. It is time, it does take a long time to understand it. This industry on this side of the Hex River mountains is a sophisticated industry. If hon. members wish to talk about the distilling of peach brandy, we Transvaalers can join in. I want to thank hon. members for supporting this Bill and specially the hon. member for Ceres for the role he is playing in the wine industry.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As the name indicates, the Egg Production Control Act, 1970, provides that regulations restricting the production of hens’ eggs can be set in motion from time to time.

In terms of section 2(4) of the Act, producers who kept chickens for egg production on 28 February 1970, enjoy special protection in the sense that when regulations are set in motion for restricting egg production, those producers can lay claim to permits in order to keep at least the same number of chickens for egg production as they kept on 28 February 1970.

Regulations restricting egg production were set in motion on 23 October 1970 for the first time, and repealed again on 30 June 1977. During that period, the producers in question enjoyed the protection to which I have just referred. Such regulations have been in operation again since 15 September 1978 and some producers are now again laying claim to the protection of section 2(4) of the Act. Apparently the intention was that producers would only enjoy the protection of section 2(4) of the Act for the first introduction of regulations restricting egg production. It would create an untenable and indefensible situation if producers— even those who have ceased to produce eggs in the meantime—could lay claim at every introduction of production restriction measures to be allowed to keep at least the same number of chickens that they kept on 28 February 1970.

The Egg Control Board that represents the interests in the industry and which also acts as an advisory body in issuing the permits under discussion, has consequently requested that section 2(4) of the Act be deleted. The request is justified and is in the interest of the egg industry as a whole. Consequently the Bill now proposes that this section be deleted.

Mr. Speaker, this is not a very long Bill, in fact it is probably the shortest Bill that we have had before us this session but it is also probably the most disappointing one. [Interjections.] We are faced with an egg industry which is in total disarray at the present time.

It is cracking up.

We are expecting action from the hon. the Minister.

Do you want him to lay eggs? [Interjections.]

What do we get? Nothing. As the hon. member says, he has laid an egg.

What do you suggest?

I am just about to talk about what I suggest.

The hon. the Deputy Minister has just woken up.

I am glad to see that he is at last taking a keen interest in the proceedings. I noticed the sort of keen interest he was paying previously. [Interjections.]

To take a look at the egg industry at the moment, this Bill, as the hon. the Minister says, merely removes the section that gave protection to producers who had a certain number of laying hens on 28 February 1970. These people will no longer have protection and they will be subject to the normal controls. I use the word “normal” in a rather extraordinary sense, because I refer to the controls that have become the norm in the industry. Those controls have resulted in the mess the industry is in today.

In the egg industry we have three major near-monopolistic producers, viz. Tiger Oats, Premier Milling and Tongaat who control very nearly half of the industry between them. Another major producer, Bokomo, is trying to get into the industry in a big way. Apart from that there are approximately 500 small producers and controls were introduced to protect them and to look after their interests, I presume the controls were also introduced to look after the interests of the consumer, the public interest, but the net result of all these controls has been an absolute disaster. I know that the hon. the Minister himself is in trouble and I gather that various egg producers are going to haul him up before court to give evidence in a certain matter. [Interjections.] I think the hon. the Minister must be very careful about the monopolistic situation that has developed in the egg industry.

Will you be able to unscramble it?

I shall do my best to unscramble it, but I am absolutely certain that I shall not de-lay the House for too long. [Interjections.]

That is nothing to crow about.

What a “yolk”!

I would like some comments from the hon. the Minister on the state of the egg industry at the moment. We are in a situation where we in the Transvaal are having to import eggs from the Western Cape or Natal.

Hear, hear!

But overall South Africa is producing a surplus of eggs and many of them are exported at a loss and the South African consumer has to pay for those export losses. This is the result of control. This is because the hon. the Minister decided to interfere in what happened to the consumer in South Africa.

What must I do then?

Did they call for the product?

Must I abolish all control?

Well, the hon. the Minister should take away control, but there are certain provisos. Firstly, one has to be careful that monopolistic tendencies in the industry are overcome. We have legislation on the Statute Book which enables us to control monopolies.

One hen, one egg.

I should suggest to the hon. the Minister that he approach the hon. the Minister of Industries and of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and request him to look into the monopolistic situation in the egg industry. There is no way in which control can be removed until such time as the Government is prepared to control the monopoly. Otherwise there are many egg producers that will go out of business, because the floor price will disappear, and with the big feed companies being the major egg producers, the small producers will disappear overnight, and the big feed companies will have it all to themselves, which means that the price of eggs will inevitably go up.

Who controls the feed companies?

When we talk about a free market mechanism operating in the egg industry we do mean a free market operation. One cannot under any circumstances have a situation of free market operation when monopolies are in existence.

You have said it.

Unless one is prepared to do something about monopolies the floor price is a necessity. There have been some better looking tendencies in the egg industry recently, one of them, I believe, being the fact that Nepco, for example, was dissolved. I believe that is an advantage.

You are in favour of control. You are also in favour of a floor price. On what point do we differ then?

All I want to point out is that the hon. the Minister has landed us in a terrible mess by attempting to control and by doing so completely inadequately. That is why we are in such a mess. [Interjections.] That is why we are not in a situation in which we can produce reasonably cheap eggs for the consumer. We have also destroyed many of the small producers. [Interjections.] Many of the small producers now feel that the game is simply not worth the candle.

You must not say those things in Johannesburg. You would be sorry.

The hon. the Minister says I am going to feel sorry. [Interjections.]

It seems to me you are against the industry altogether.

It has been said— and I shall concede this point to the hon. the Minister—that the removal of control would result in complete chaos. Well, this is possibly so, but again I should stress that unless the removal of control goes hand in hand with the control of monopolies, we are going to get nowhere. The point of this speech, however, is that I am requesting the hon. the Minister to allow, in this instance, free market mechanisms to take over. He should allow private enterprise and the free market mechanism to see whether it could really produce results. I am sure the hon. the Minister wants to do it, but I do not think he has the guts. If he does remove those controls, I believe, we would see a situation in which, when these free market mechanisms operate, the producer himself would benefit … [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister knows perfectly well that we are in a situation in which the smaller producers would in fact like to mix their own feeds. Firstly, the hon. the Minister, because he supports a system of controlling the mealie price … [Interjections.] … makes sure that chicken producers have to pay a certain amount for the major composites of their feeds.

To which Bill are you speaking now?

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking to this Bill, as the hon. the Deputy Minister should know. In any case, I have noticed he has not been paying great interest to the discussion so far. [Interjections.] I am nevertheless quite prepared to remind the hon. the Deputy Minister that we are in fact discussing now the Egg Production Control Amendment Bill. I am simply trying to bring the hon. the Deputy Minister up to date with what is going on around him. [Interjections.] I want to ask the hon. the Minister a couple of questions, and I should like answers to those questions. What does he intend doing about controls in the egg industry? I think he has to admit that it is a mess. What is he going to do about controls?

Go and ask the hens.

Well, the answer I would get from the hens is probably the sort of answer I normally get from that hon. Minister. He sits in that bench and just cackles away, getting us all nowhere.

You will get an answer.

What is he going to do about it? This Bill is a disappointment. All it does is remove the protection that some of the smaller producers used to have against the monopolies. Now that protection is to be removed totally. So what is he going to do?

I shall tell you.

Well, I am pleased. Perhaps I have galvanized him into a little action. Perhaps he might now be prepared to do something. What the problem needs is a little imagination. I do not, however, think that hon. Minister is exercising his imagination, and the hon. the Deputy Minister has no imagination.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?

You are so galvanized you are closed.

Is the hon. the Minister prepared to take action against the monopolies? We have had long debates in this House about vertical integration.

What clause is this?

What on earth is that hon. Minister going to do about vertical integration, because the prime example of vertical integration is in the egg industry. [Interjections.] It is all very well to treat this as a joke …

If you have nothing to say, do not say it.

… but there are many egg farmers who are in very difficult circumstances, and the hon. the Minister knows it. The consumer is not satisfied, because he is paying more for his eggs than he ought to.

Hear, hear!

I am pleased that at last that hon. Minister has decided to speak up for the consumer. [Interjections.] I must admit that the hon. the Minister’s change of heart in this respect has in fact quite …

Overwhelmed you.

… overwhelmed me because I did not believe finally that the hon. the Minister would say something in favour of the consumer. I am glad he believes that the consumer should be protected and that in this matter, in this whole question of egg production, something should be done about the problem.

Vertical integration has to be stopped. [Interjections.] Monopolies also have to be stopped. I believe that controls can be removed. [Interjections.] So can I plead with that hon. Minister to just try, in this small sphere of the industry, to do away with controls, allow free-market mechanisms to operate and see what happens. I believe the hon. Minister would be pleasantly surprised. The poultry farmers, the egg farmers, would also be pleasantly surprised.

Break the socialist yoke.

Delaying tactics.

In this Bill we are dealing with eggs, but the broiler industry, for example, is bedevilled with monopolies. The hon. the Minister, however, has not been prepared to do anything.

But do I control broilers? It is a free enterprise. Nobody interferes with broilers.

Order! I think the hon. member has been in order so far, but I am not going to allow broiling.

If the hon. member has nothing to say, he must not say it.

The hon. the Minister is too cocky!

Order!

I have grave difficulty with the humour of hon. members on both sides of the House. To make a speech in these circumstances, on a very serious matter, is extremely difficult. [Interjections.]

Order!

I think I have given my message to the hon. the Minister. [Interjections.] There are certain questions he has to answer, and I request him to give his urgent attention to this matter because this Bill is totally inadequate. We have to support it …

Are you going to support it?

I believe the hon. the Minister has his heart in the right place. I believe he is trying his best. All I am saying is that he must try to use his imagination, look at the problems and admit that there are problems in the egg industry. He must do something about them.

He must come out of his shell.

This Bill is almost meaningless. What is the hon. the Minister going to do? My request to him is to please tell us what he is going to do to put the situation in the egg industry right, because this Bill is not going to do so. It is not even going to come halfway or a quarter way towards doing so. I therefore ask the hon. the Minister to reply to my comments and questions.

Half an egg is better than an empty shell.

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear to me that the hon. member for Orange Grove knows absolutely nothing about the egg industry. The hon. member tried to convey a message to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture, in a very lighthearted vein, but the problem that the hon. the Minister is trying to obviate by means of the Bill, is a very serious one because it affects the way of life of a large number of smallholders, in the Western Cape in particular. It is no joke for them to be saddled with surplus production today and in addition to have to compete with large financial institutions that have entered the industry. The livelihood of these people is at stake, and perhaps we could treat the subject a little more seriously in the House. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Orange Grove launched an attack at the background of control and said that the hon. the Minister has failed in his system of control. According to him, this is the reason for the situation that we are faced with in the egg industry. When the Egg Production Control Act was introduced in 1970, the then Minister of Agriculture began his speech as follows (Hansard, 1970, col. 2463)—

This is precisely what the entire control system still does today. It aims at obtaining a measure of stability in the industry. If it were not for this control that we have now been exercising over the industry, for the past 10 years, not a single small-scale producer would have remained in the Western Cape today—and I think in the rest of the country too. All of them would have been forced out by the large monopolies of which the hon. member for Orange Grove spoke.

The hon. member is asking for a free market mechanism. However, what have we seen in the Western Cape over the past months? We have seen that these large producers are simply manipulating prices. They are simply cutting prices below production costs, because they enjoy certain privileges as a result of the fact that they are also involved in the feed industry and their interests are not primarily in the production of eggs, but rather in the sale of feed. If there was not a measure of control, they would have forced every small-scale producer off the market as early as the year before last. This would have been the situation if the State had not offered a measure of protection. Therefore I think that it is absolutely wrong of the hon. member for Orange Grove to say that we should leave the entire industry to the free market mechanism.

What about the monopolies?

The hon. member may rant on about that. However, I say that if we want to protect the small-scale producers, we must retain this measure of control. That is not all. If we want to protect the consumer, we will have to retain this control, because what would happen? As soon as these large companies to which the hon. member referred, have forced all the smaller ones off the market, they would ask exactly what they wanted for eggs and the consumer would have to pay through the nose for them.

That is exactly what I said.

It is very interesting to note that when the legislation was introduced 10 years ago, the present hon. the Minister of the Interior also participated in the discussion. It took many days to pilot the Bill through the House. If one looks up the Hansard, one will find that it took days and days. It was a tremendous debate. What did the present hon. the Minister of the Interior say at that stage? He said (Hansard 1970, col. 3178)—

This is still true. The hon. the Minister did not come to the House with legislation without having obtained the approval of the Egg Control Board and the egg producers.

And the Poultry Association—the lot.

Yes, the Poultry Association too. All of them granted their approval to this Bill. The hon. member for Orange Grove knows what happened. We held meetings, and I do not think there is anyone in the House who has a thicker file on eggs and egg production than I do. We held meetings in Cape Town, East London, Pretoria and once again in Cape Town where all the egg interests—the Egg Control Board and the large- and small-scale producers—consulted with the hon. the Minister every time. Each time the problem was that we were faced with a situation where there was an excess production of eggs and that the surpluses had to be disposed of. The only way in which one can dispose of a surplus, is if an export market can be obtained. We tried to find an export market in various ways. In spite of that the egg industry itself, large- and small-scale producers, told the hon. the Minister at a meeting in the Verwoerd Building at the beginning of the present session—I was a witness to it —that in order to save the situation so that there would not be such great surpluses —everybody would decrease the number of hens which they had, the large-scale producers to a greater extent and the small-scale producers to a lesser extent. Some producers, however, said that they would decrease to the number that they had in 1970, but no further. As a result of the action of those large-scale producers—they were not small-scale producers because they would not have been able to have such an influence on the market—the entire effort of the industry was frustrated. As a result of that, this legislation was introduced, and I think it is our duty to give it our support, so that the egg industry can put their house in order. That is why we on this side of the House are pleased to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, we will support the Second Reading of this Bill. As the hon. member for Malmesbury has said, this is really an attempt by the hon. the Minister to unlock a logjam which has developed during the course of this year as a result of the actions of certain people who have not gone along with an agreement within the industry for bringing about a reduction in the production of eggs. This matter has had a long history in this House, and the hon. the Minister was a Deputy Minister when he first introduced a Bill 10 years ago to try to achieve control over the production of eggs. It resulted in a permit to produce eggs and was limited to a total of 10 000 laying birds. The problem was then, as the hon. the Minister himself realized, that those permits were made transferable, and that is where the whole system falls down. From the date of the introduction of that permit, which was transferable and which enabled a person to buy permits from others with a view to expanding, that big monopolies began to develop. That is what has happened. By reason of the acquisition of permits from smaller producers who were forced to sell out because of the economic climate, the structuring of these immense empires started, integrated—as has been said—from the feed producers right through to the marketing of the eggs. We have this anomaly, because where one has the economies of scale in the production of eggs in the hands of the big producers, one finds that at the same time there is a rise in price.

I do not know how the hon. the Minister can get around this one, because it will not happen, as would normally be the case, that if big companies simply took over the entire market—and in this respect the hon. member for Malmesbury is quite right—that would not result in a lowering of the price. It would then result in a completely monopolistic condition and a fixing of prices, and one would find prices going up. We support the idea of control of production, because it is the only way by which one can bring down to a reasonable level the amount of eggs to be marketed in South Africa. The problem is not the eggs which are marketed. The losses come on the eggs which are exported, and this cost the country an enormous amount of money. In taking the step which he is taking, I think the hon. the Minister is now trying to do what he should perhaps have done a long time ago, namely to ensure that the intention of the Act, when it was first introduced to limit and to control production, is now actually for the first time going to be effective. Anything that the hon. the Minister can do along those lines is worthy of the support of this House. We therefore support the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Orange Grove has the gift for saying many things, to get it printed in the newspapers and to create an impression that I am making a mess of the egg industry. He has also said that I am making a mess of the maize industry as well. He says that I control the maize price and then adds that I am not interested in the consumer of South Africa. What happened is that we decided to pay the South African farmer R118 per ton for white maize and now he can sell that maize for R197 per ton. Does the hon. member want us to decontrol maize and by so doing compel the Black man in this country to pay R197 for 1 ton of maize? Is that what the hon. member wants? The hon. member is now creating the impression that I do not like the consumer, especially the Black consumer in this country. The main thing is that these stories are spread throughout South Africa, but then in the same breath the hon. member says that he wants control of the egg industry and adds that I have made a mess of the broiler industry. There is absolutely no control over any broiler undertaking in South Africa. But the hon. member says the broiler industry is in a mess.

Why do you not use the anti-monopoly legislation for the broiler industry?

I am still coming to the monopoly story. The hon. member made four different accusations and then created the impression that I was against the consumer of South Africa. I do not control the retail price of maize. Any miller can sell maize at any price he wants to. But the hon. member shouts for free enterprise. There is no control whatsoever on the retail price of eggs, but the hon. member shouts for free enterprise. Good heavens, Sir! I am sorry, I do not know what to say. I shall just have to exercise a little patience. What happened is that the hon. member for Mooi River pin-pointed the problem. When this Act was introduced in 1970, the farmers heard that Tongaat was going to start with one million laying hens. I pleaded with the individual farmers and asked them not to make their permits transferable. They asked me what they must do. They said that the permit had a certain sale value. If a man gets old and wants to transfer his permit, he must be given the opportunity to sell it if his son does not want to farm. This is where we made the mistake. Tongaat, Premium Milling and Tiger Oats, the three majors of today, saw that there was a possibility of selling feed. They are in the fishmeal business and in the milling business and what they lose on the swings they make up on the roundabout. They sell feed to the farmer and thought that this was an opportunity of coming into the egg industry under the permit system. What did we do in 1978? As the hon. member for Malmesbury said, I had many meetings in the Western Cape with the farmers, not only with the Egg Board people, but also with members of the Poultry Association. They advised me not to cut back on the farmers with 20 000 hens.

*They told me to cut back on the majors and all who had more than 20 000 laying hens. The hon. member said that we were exporting eggs at a loss. That is true. However, if one wants to keep the pipeline full and one is looking for a certain quality of eggs in South Africa, there must be an egg surplus of at least between 10% and 15% in order to keep the pipeline full. The world price of eggs has dropped, and we are consequently exporting eggs at a loss. The hon. member said that he agreed with me about the floor price. I shall quote this hon. member’s Hansard at all the political meetings I am going to hold and I shall say, although I am not really allowed to say it, that it was one of the most stupid speeches I have ever heard in my life. The hon. member must not say that I made a mess of anything. I flatly refuse to accept this.

†The hon. member asked who paid for the export loss. The consumer of course has to pay to get cheap eggs and to keep the pipeline full. How can one have the pipeline full and a 15% surplus and then expect the producer to pay all along? One has to have someone to pay for the surplus, and that is the reason why all countries in the world take a levy on the floor price from the consumer. They do that to enable them to have eggs available daily.

*The hon. member does not understand this kind of thing. He thinks one presses a button, the egg rolls out of a chute, and you go and fry it. It does not work like that. In 1970, when this Act was introduced, a South African hen laid an average of 232 eggs per annum. The former hon. member for South Coast, Mr. Douglas Mitchell, helped me to get an Act passed in a hurry here in order to put a stop to the smuggling of eggs from places in America, as a result of which diseases were being brought into the country. We then amended the Agricultural Technical Services Act. We held talks and eventually we said that in order to protect the small farmer, hens could only be imported through the Irene research station. That would enable the small egg farmer to obtain quantities of that breeding material, not only the three majors, i.e. Tongaat, Premier and Tiger Oats. We did all these things. What happened then? Today the South African hen is not laying an average of 232 eggs per year, but 274 eggs per year.

The things you people are able to do with legislation!

I am trying to get it into the hon. member’s head that this is what one succeeds in doing with research. This is not done with the Act, but with research, with the right of breeding material and the right type of hen. There is production control of eggs and of hens. Moreover, there are batteries, lights in the night, so that it is never dark in that battery. These are tactics. The hen becomes confused and keeps on laying. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether he agrees that the monopolies have to be controlled more than they are controlled at the moment if they are not to do further damage to the egg industry?

I fully agree. As I told the hon. member, we had the meetings with the hon. member for Malmesbury. We decided to do nothing about the farmer with 20 000 hens. If necessary, we shall increase it even to 30 000 or 40 000 hens. On the other hand, the hon. member must also remember that they produce only 41% of the eggs produced by the three majors. Only in certain areas are they creating big problems. After Nepco’s failure in Natal, Tongaat took the initiative and formed a small cooperative with the farmers in Natal, thereby also bringing their side in helping the industry. They do not want to lose the support of even the smaller ones, because they are buying from them. [Interjections.]

*The hon. member must not tell me: “You have not got the guts.” In view of the way in which I take the part of the smaller producers and the way in which I struggled for three days and a night here in 1970 as Deputy Minister to pilot the Egg Production Control Act through Parliament, in spite of the Opposition, who opposed every clause, no one can tell me that I do not have the guts. He simply made a whole lot of allegations, but did not suggest any solution. This is not something one can solve overnight, because it is too complicated. However, I want to thank hon. members for their support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

As hon. members know, the hon. the Minister of Finance announced in his budget speech that the disparity in taxes payable by persons of different population groups will be phased out as far as possible over a period of three years. Effect is now being given to this announcement by the hon. the Minister of Finance.

Negotiations have also been conducted in this connection with the Governments of the various Black States to have corresponding amendments made to their tax laws in order to ensure that a discrepancy does not arise between the tax burden of Blacks who are subject to taxation by this Parliament on the one hand, and the tax burden of Blacks who are subject to taxation by the legislative assemblies of the various Black States, on the other hand.

In addition, local taxes which are payable only in certain Black areas in respect of residential stands are being abolished in accordance with the abolition in 1978 of the personal tax consisting of a fixed amount. The amount actually collected no longer justifies the administrative expenses incurred in collecting local tax.

This state of affairs is due to the fact that almost all the land on which local tax is payable has already been incorporated into the various Black States. In this case, too, successful negotiations have been conducted of the Governments of the various Black States about similar measures.

I now come close to the specific provisions contained in this Bill. Clause 6 provides for the abolition of local tax, and in clauses 1 to 4 and 7 to 14, all references to local tax and all provisions which have become superfluous or useless because of its abolition are being removed from the Black Taxation Act, 1969.

In clause 5, provision is being made, on the one hand, for raising the threshold at which Blacks become liable for income tax from R1 201 to R1 801, and, on the other hand, for scaling down the tax rate by 20%.

The long title and short titles of the Black Taxation Act, 1969, are amended in clauses 15 and 16 in order to improve them grammatically.

It is intended that, apart from the provisions of clauses 5 and 6, this Bill, if agreed to, will commence at the date of commencement of the Black Taxation Amendment Act, 1979, because some of the provisions that are being repealed by these two laws are still necessary in order to collect arrear taxes consisting of a fixed amount, of which a considerable amount is still outstanding.

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. the Deputy Minister has stated, this Bill before us is part of a phasing-in process which will finally result in the taxation of Blacks being placed on the same basis as that for the other races. This is something we have asked for over a number of years, and we shall therefore be supporting the Bill.

This is really phase two of the three-year phase-in, because we had the first phase introduced last year. I hope next year will see the completion of this process, which we shall welcome.

We on these benches have never understood why there should be any differentiation in taxation measures applying to Blacks as against those applying to other people in the Republic. They pay the same indirect taxes, they are liable to general sales tax, for customs duties placed on goods which they buy, and also for all the excise duties. We see no reason whatsoever why income tax should be placed on any different basis. We welcomed the fact that general taxes were abolished a couple of years ago as indicative of the Government’s willingness to move in this direction. We are therefore going to support this Bill although there are certain omissions which we deprecate, but as those will be dealt with by the hon. member for Edenvale, I shall say nothing further on the subject.

The hon. member for Houghton has indicated that the PFP is supporting this Bill because it represents the second phase in the creation of parity between the taxation scales applicable to Blacks and Whites. I wonder whether she is aware of the fact that a large percentage of the Blacks will actually be adversely affected by this creation of parity, because all the unmarried people, all the married people without children, or with one or two children, will pay higher taxes than before in terms of this creation of parity. Even at this stage, those Blacks who are married, with two children, benefit considerably from this scale, for when it was decided in 1971 to make separate taxation scales applicable to Blacks, and when the amount at which it would commence was fixed at R360 a year, this was considered essential for the very reason that a very simple system was required, and because it could hardly be expected that the vast majority of Blacks who were affected would provide the Receiver with the fairly complicated income tax return. For that reason, therefore, it was provided that a very easily determined tariff would be levied. At that stage it was also decided, therefore, to fix the tariff at the scale that would have been applicable in 1971—when it was introduced—to married Whites with two children, but in the following years, partly as a result of the inflation rate, bigger rebates were granted, but the scales for Blacks remained unchanged. Last year, it was decided to introduce the first phase, and the amount at which taxation begins was increased from R361 a year to R1 201 a year. This year it is being increased to R1 801. Only when a Black man has an annual income of R1 801 does he begin to pay tax, but this system still holds advantages for unmarried Blacks with one or two children.

The creation of parity in fact means that they are paying more than they would have paid if parity had not been created. When we introduce the third phase, as we hope to do next year, the scales will be exactly the same for all, and unmarried people with up to two children will pay according to the same scale as that which is presently applicable to Coloureds, Indians and Whites. I fully agree with that. It is correct that it should be done.

Of course, this does creates certain problems for the Treasury, because it will involve considerably more administrative work. Therefore I want to say that I trust that the Treasury is already taking measures to ensure that it will be able to do that additional preparatory work. I believe that there will be approximately 50 000 Blacks who will be taxable as from next year, if parity is created. Of course, a much larger number will have to submit tax returns. This will mean that the Treasury, which has a considerable shortage of staff at the moment, will have to do much more administrative work to be able to handle the parity on the administrative level.

Another aspect that is relevant is the following. Through the creation of parity, provision has been made for the national States to be fully compensated for the losses they will suffer when the tax threshold is raised from R1 200 to R1 800 this year. When the first phase was introduced last year, a special amount of R33 million was appropriated to compensate the national States for that loss. Because their own citizens were paying a smaller amount in taxes because of the concession, the other tax-payers of South Africa had to compensate the Black States in full for the loss they suffered. This year, again, there is a special contribution. The hon. the Minister of Finance mentioned the figure here yesterday. I believe that this year’s figure will amount to a further R25 million. That is the additional amount that has had to be appropriated for this year. It is important to note that all the direct taxation, as well as a calculation of the indirect taxation, derived from the Blacks is calculated and allocated, and that an equal amount is granted to the national States by way of compensation. In this year’s budget, the amount which is being granted directly in terms of section 6(2)(c) of Act No. 21 of 1971 is R204 million in all. Over and above this R204 million, i.e. the allocation of the taxes derived from the Blacks, a further R217,5 million has been appropriated for the national States. This is an amount which is being contributed to the national States additional to the direct allocation of funds. The total amount, therefore, is R421 million.

The subsidy—to call it that—which is being paid, therefore, is in fact more than 100% of the amount obtained directly from the Black people. With this creation of parity which is now being planned, an even greater additional contribution will probably have to be made. This simply proves the goodwill on the part of the Government, and therefore it is gratifying to see that the hon. member for Houghton is sometimes satisfied with what the Government does. She should only display greater responsibility with regard to other matters which are also becoming essential, then one will set even greater store by the appreciation she occasionally expresses.

I should like to refer to another aspect. With this allocation to the national Black States, there have been lengthy deliberations about the way in which it should be done. Should it be done on a basis of source or on a basis of citizenship? If it is done only on a basis of citizenship, there are certain anomalies in that the already independent States such as Transkei, Bophuthatswana and Venda receive their tax allocation from the Republic on a basis of source, and therefore it is recommended that all the national States be funded on that basis.

Last year, the hon. the Deputy Minister who is dealing with this was still a member of the commission which made this very recommendation to the department. I should like to appeal to him to give his full support to it. Where the hon. the Deputy Minister of Finance was the Chairman of the Cooperation and Development Commission last year, there is a good partnership now, so that this transfer to a basis of source can be properly carried through. I trust that when we come to the third phase next year, the system will already be fully accepted.

It is a pleasure for me to support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we shall support the Second Reading of the Bill. There are several matters on which we should like to comment.

I think it has been stated by both the hon. members for Houghton and Klip River that this forms part of a phased programme. I think the hon. member for Klip River was quite right when he said that when these phases are carried to completion, Black people will be affected quite severely in the application of tax rates once they are brought on to a common rate and scale with Whites. However, tax is intended to be something neutral and there should be no recognition of colour or anything like that and I think it is entirely correct that we should come to that system.

I think there are several problems which do arise. One of the points I should like to make about the Bill is that tax is levelled on individuals so that if a married couple are both working and earning, they are paying tax as two individuals rather than as a married couple. Therefore they do get the advantage that they do not pay at a higher rate on their combined income as Whites do in terms of our tax rates.

The question of bringing the Black people on to a common scale with Whites is one which concerns me from the point of view that if one has a practical application of the tax scales as it pertains to us, one is assessed at a certain rate and then, in terms of the budget introduced this year, there is also a system of rebates. This year we are returning to such a system. In the light of the complex social pattern of the Black community, I am a little puzzled how rebates for children and so forth are going to be applied in the same way as in the case of Whites. In the Black community there are so many more cases of looser unions than in the White community where marriages are solemnized and recognized etc. I do think that there may well be a considerable period of difficulty in ironing out all these practical anomalies before we can come on to a system where everything is going to go smoothly and the tax system is going to work in the way we hope it will work.

I should like to raise one matter which is not quite clear to me with the hon. the Deputy Minister. It relates to subsection (2) of clause 5 on page 7. The subsection has the effect that a person who has paid tax in the current year for a period of two months at the higher scale—in other words, a person who has started on the R1 201 scale and has paid for two months but who now falls between the R1 201 and the R1 800 mark— cannot apply for a refund. I think this is perfectly correct because I cannot see how it will be possible to identify all the people concerned so that they can receive a refund.

It does not, however, provide for people over the R1 800 mark being able to apply for a refund. I should like to ask the hon. the Deputy Minister whether he is aware of the problem that will arise, if I am correct, because the people who are not entitled to apply for a refund are specifically those falling between those two figures. There is consequently the anomaly that a person who is earning R1 800 is, in terms of the schedule, required to pay a tax of 24 cents for the year, whereas if he were able and entitled to claim a refund, he would be able to claim a refund of something like R3,04. So there would be a period in which he would be free of tax almost indefinitely. So if I am right, and if the person concerned is able to claim a refund, what would in fact be happening is that the bench-mark of R1 800 would increase to something like R2 400, because for this year the person concerned would be able to claim a refund of R3,04. I am puzzled and I hope the hon. the Deputy Minister will be able to tell me what the position is. Either I am wrong because I have read the Bill wrongly, or else he recognizes that that will require something of an amendment to make sure that he is not faced with a situation in which he cannot levy tax upon a number of people included in the lower brackets from R1 800 to R2 400, or somewhere in that region. With those remarks, let me say that we support the Second Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of section 9 of the Finance Act of 1978, general tax, consisting of a fixed amount of R2,50 per person, was abolished. This was the old tax which used to be known as poll-tax. It was payable by Black men over the age of 18 years. Last year, we passed amending legislation on Black taxation in this House. The main purpose of that Act, Act 21 of 1979, was to remove all references to the abolished tax from the Black Taxation Act of 1969. The purpose of that Act can be regarded merely as a purifying one with regard to Black taxation. The purpose of the Act was merely to remove all references to general tax as a fixed amount. What remained in the Act, however, was local tax or the hut tax paid by the Black man. The Bill which is now before the House is in fact intended to remove local tax from the Act completely.

When we look at the first few clauses, we note that they all concentrate on the omission, removal or deletion of any reference to local tax. The legislation also provides for the continuation of the process of removal of disparities between the taxes payable by the various population groups, which began last year. As other speakers have already mentioned, the process will be phased out next year. The level at which taxation commences is also being raised, as previous speakers have mentioned, from R1 201 to R1 801, and the tax rate is being reduced.

I gladly support this legislation, because I personally feel that when this final phasing-out process has been completed, the Black man in South Africa will rightly be able to take pride in the fact that he is able to make his contribution to the financing of South Africa. This will rightly be a source of pride to him. I think the removal of this statutory discrimination with regard to the payment of tax was long overdue, and I am very glad to be able to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I find myself in agreement with many of the points raised by the hon. member for Aliwal North. Obviously one welcomes the fact that local taxes are to be scrapped, because this is, in fact, a step in removing discrimination between the White and Black tax systems. As he also pointed out, there is an improvement in the threshold at which Blacks will pay tax, i.e. an increase from R1 200 to R1 800. He made the point, with which I agree, that this will enable Blacks to feel that they are contributing towards the economic development of South Africa. The point, in fact, is that we have a unitary economy and that Blacks do contribute to the development of the South African economy and they play a very important economic role. Obviously one welcomes the fact that they too will derive some benefits from the very good year that South Africa enjoyed in 1979. I believe it is only right that Black taxpayers should also derive some benefit from the additional tax revenues arising from the increase in the price of gold.

One also welcomes the fact that we are continuing on the path of removing discrimination between the Black Taxation Act and the Income Tax Act. Indeed, I think some of us had hoped that, in view of the good year the fiscus had, we might have been able to move along that path somewhat faster. Of course, the basic distinction, as the hon. member for Mooi River pointed out, is that under the Black Taxation Act people are taxed as individual taxpayers whereas under the Income Tax Act we tax people as a family unit. How one removes this distinction, as the hon. member for Mooi River pointed out, is a difficult question, because the cultural systems are different.

I think one of the anomalies which we could have dealt with quite easily is the fact that Blacks enjoy no relief whatsoever on medical aid contributions, life insurance premiums or Unemployment Insurance Fund premiums. The reason of course is that the rebate system of the Income Tax Act does not apply to the Black Taxation Act. While the difficulties of allowing rebates or abatements for wives and children can be appreciated, it seems to me unacceptable that Blacks do not enjoy some measure of relief for contributing to medical aid schemes or life insurance. The provision of both these benefits bears a direct relationship to State expenditure on Black hospitals and social welfare. There is therefore every justification to grant such tax relief. I would also suggest that the State should encourage Blacks to insure themselves, because what they are, in fact, doing when they take out life insurance is that they are removing the potential of them becoming a burden on the State. This naturally applies to both Whites and Blacks. I would also suggest that this would add impetus to the growth of an affluent middle-class amongst the Blacks which is so essential to the continued well-being of the country.

While there are points which one would have liked to have seen introduced in this Bill, one is obviously thankful for small mercies and that there are some beneficial points in the Bill before the House. Consequently we, on this side of the House, will be supporting the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose every person on earth has a cross which he has to bear. My cross is that after every speech I make as Deputy Minister of Cooperation, the hon. member for Houghton takes the floor. This is an uncomfortable situation, for in a typically feminine way, she is absolutely contradictory. On the one hand, she supports the Bill, for which we are very grateful, but on the other hand she criticizes the fact that this measure was not introduced a long time ago. She even says that she has been advocating it for years. How is one to conduct a logical and meaningful debate under such circumstances?

[Inaudible.]

In spite of that, I want to forgive her her illogicality and thank her for the fact that she did give her support to the legislation.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Klip River for his explanation of this legislation, as well as the hon. member for Aliwal for his contribution. The hon. member for Klip River referred to the question of citizenship as a basis. I can assure him that all these matters have been and are still being very thoroughly examined. Therefore he must not think that we shall leave it out of account. We try to think of all possibilities.

I also want to thank the hon. member for Mooi River, but I must quite honestly say that I could not quite follow his argument. However, I shall reply to him during the Committee Stage. His argument may have been very logical, but I could not quite follow it. The answer concerns the fact that the tax year actually begins on 1 March, but that the tables only come into operation on 1 May. I do not quite know how this came about. Much of what the hon. member said, and the same applies to the hon. member for Edenvale, was intended more for the ears of the hon. the Minister of Finance. We are only introducing the enabling legislation. It is actually the task of the Department of Finance to rectify these matters and to set the mechanics in order. Finally, I should like to thank all hon. members for their support of the legislation.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This short measure is a purely technical rectification which does not involve any new principle. Its sole purpose is to effect the validation of the commencement of a Radio Amendment Act of 1978 which, according to the law advisers, is not legally in force owing to the late publication of the proclamation which had to put it into operation. The matter has been fully explained in the explanatory memorandum that I have tabled, and I do not think it is necessary for me to go into further detail on this.

Mr. Speaker, this appears to be the sad tale of a Bill which lost its way. It was actually passed in 1978, it was signed by the State President in late 1979 and then it was supposed to be proclaimed on 1 January 1980, but something happened along the way. We do not exactly know whether it was the Post Office, the radio hams, the Government Printer or maybe just the Christmas season, but it did not reach the state of proclamation until 11 January 1980. We are very happy to help the hon. the Minister to put all this right, and without any further criticism at all we are happy to assist in bringing into effect from 1 January 1980, as is proper, the Radio Amendment Act.

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House thank the hon. member for Constantia very much for agreeing with us on this amendment because the issue here is basically nothing but a date. I think he was correct in saying that the problem with this date probably arose as a result of the “Christmas feeling” prevailing amongst certain people.

There is just one interesting date to which I should like to refer since the Bill deals with a date only. It is true that broadcasting started in South Africa on 6 September 1922 when the Government formed a contract with Marconi under the Postmaster-General of the time, a certain Mr. Sturman, to build a radio station for South Africa. That contract formed the basis of legislation that was introduced to Parliament on 31 January 1923 in order to control broadcasting by means of legislation. Therefore, the Radio Act of South Africa and this Radio Amendment Bill that we are discussing tonight, began with a contract which was later authorized by legislation introduced on 31 January 1923 which became the Radio Telegraph Station Act on 8 March 1923.

It is interesting to note that the Minister at the time was a man named Sir Thomas Watt. It is also very interesting that the watt is the unit of energy that is used in radio and that a man named Watt should be the one to introduce the legislation to authorize and begin broadcasting in South Africa.

We on this side of the House are also pleased to support this amendment Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have just had an interesting little snippet of information from the hon. member for Wonderboom. I think it is just as well that the Opposition member who at that time was the shadow Minister, was not Ohm, because that would have been the unit of resistance to that particular measure. [Interjections.]

We are grateful to the hon. the Minister for the White Paper which he has laid upon the Table of the House to assist us in this measure. It explains exactly what it is all about. As the hon. member for Constantia has said, the Bill may have lost its way, but like Mary’s little lamb, it has found its home. We obviously support it because it regularizes a situation that could have been termed illegal.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. members on that side of the House who indicated that they will be supporting this very short Bill.

*I also want to thank the hon. member for Wonderboom for his interesting bit of history. Just to indicate clearly where the problem arose with the delay, I should like to mention that the State President had already signed the Bill at the time on 22 December in Durban. As a result of the holidays and the fact that the Gazette does not always appear so promptly on the right day at that time of the year, publication only took place after 1 January.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

This Bill seeks to amend certain laws which are being administered by the Department of Co-operation and Development, and deals with various matters which I shall explain briefly.

The provisions of the Community Councils Act of 1977 deal primarily with the functions of local government and not with the administration of justice. In the interests of the consolidation of legislation, and in order to obtain certainty in law concerning the payment of certain allowances and costs, it is deemed desirable to delete section 7 of this Act and insert similar provisions in the Black Administration Act of 1927, since sections 12 and 20 of this Act, inter alia, already deal with the conferring of civil and criminal judicial power which is also what is involved in this case.

The existing regulations for chiefs’ courts which are being made applicable in the courts which are held by those upon whom judicial power is being conferred in terms of clause 1 of this Bill, are aimed at conditions in traditional courts and must be capable of being adapted in certain respects in order to be made properly applicable to the courts in urban Black residential areas. It is essential to be able to adapt the regulations for the urban courts to make provision, inter alia, for the venue and the composition of the court—the “kgotla”—and for arrangements in respect of fines and court fees. Where problems exist which are unique to a specific place, it would inappropriate to amend the regulations in general, and what is being envisaged therefore is to cause adjustments to be made by way of ministerial notice in the Gazette. I have now dealt with clauses 1, 2 and 3 of the Bill. Clauses 4, 5 and 6 simply contain consequential amendments.

As far as clause 7 is concerned, the expression “national State” is more descriptive of the nature of the areas concerned than the present expression, viz. “Black States”, and for that reason the expression “national State” is being substituted for the present expression.

By adding to Schedule 2 of the Borders of Particular States Extension Act, 1980, in clause 8, it is being made possible for the area of jurisdiction of the municipality of Mafeking and a piece of land, which is geographically contiguous with that area and is generally known as Lonely Park, to be included in due course in the area of jurisdiction of Bophuthatswana. It is probably known to all hon. members that negotiations between the Government of the Republic and Bophuthatswana, respectively, on the incorporation of Mafeking have been in progress for a considerable time now, and also that all organized interest groups, as well as the inhabitants of Mafeking, have been consulted in regard to the matter. Consequently the Government decided, after careful consideration, to announce the decision to incorporate Mafeking into Bophuthatswana through the State President on 26 March 1980. A technical committee under the chairmanship of the chairman of the Commission for Co-operation and Development has already been appointed to inquire into and make recommendations on the physical aspects and problems in connection with the transfer of Mafeking. Included under these aspects are details concerning: The financing of the transfer process; compensation and guarantees; the orderly operation and maintenance of the infrastructure; the maintenance of law and order; the retention of the existing social structures such as schools, churches, etc.; and the position of the Coloureds and the Indians. The recommendations of the technical committee in this connection are still being awaited.

I wish to emphasize that the decision to incorporate Mafeking into Bophuthatswana in due course, and this enabling legislation, afford our young neighbouring country, the Republic of Bophuthatswana, a unique opportunity, and that this side of the House considers it to be a further development of the sound relations and co-operation between the two Republics which have already materialized in the course of time in various spheres.

As a result of the Government’s acceptance of certain of the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry into Legislation affecting the Utilization of Manpower— excluding the legislation administered by the Departments of Labour and Mines— employment opportunities must be placed under the control of the Department of Manpower Utilization. In the existing legislation provisions dealing with employment opportunities and influx control are intertwined, and the provision now contained in clause 9 is necessary in order to establish certainty in law upon transfer so that only employment opportunities are transferred to the Minister of Manpower Utilization.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that I, together with my hon. colleagues, have some difficulties with this Bill. It is a short Bill which contains certain unobjectionable clauses, but it also contains one very objectionable provision which, although it does not introduce a new principle in that it is already incorporated in the Community Councils Act of 1977, is now simply being transferred to the Black Administration Act of 1927. When that provision was originally introduced as a clause in the Community Councils Bill of 1977, we opposed it strongly. Because the same provision is now being reintroduced, albeit under the guise of a different Bill, we have to oppose it again. The provision I am talking about is the one that makes it possible for Africans living in an urban environment in areas such as Soweto, Langa and other urban townships to impose tribal law on the residents of those areas. We are against that. We do not believe it is suitable. In fact, we think it is highly unwise in 1980 to be conferring such judicial powers upon untrained people. I know that the Bill provides that these powers “may” be conferred and that they will be conferred at the request of the Community Councils, but I have to point out that, for instance, the Community Council of Soweto is at present highly unrepresentative of the people who reside there; there was something like a 6% turn out at the last Community Council election. Therefore it can hardly be said that the Community Council talks for the majority of the people who are resident there. I do not believe for a moment that the sophisticated urban population of Soweto or, for that matter, of the other urban townships would welcome the granting of such powers to untrained people. It is true that the judicial powers that have been conferred are relatively limited in that fines of up to only R40 can be imposed by virtue of sections 12 and 20 of the Black Administration Act, but there is one feature which is extremely ugly and repulsive and that is the power to impose corporal punishment on males under the age of 30 years.

I believe there is one feature that is extremely repulsive, namely the power to impose corporal punishment on males under the age of 30. I do not believe it is a power which should be conferred on people who have no judicial training. Whether or not these are civil matters—often under tribal law criminal matters are also included—I believe that the imposition of punishment of that kind, which I am against in principle anyway, should be left to the courts where properly trained judicial officers will be able to hear evidence and decide whether or not such punishment should be meted out.

I do not speak only for the hon. members on these benches, but also for the Viljoen Commission which investigated the whole penal system of South Africa and which came out very strongly indeed against the granting of such powers to men in the urban areas. I also speak for Brigadier Visser, the then Commandant of Police in charge of Soweto, who also came out very strongly against these courts. He called these makgotla courts kangaroo courts, which imposed punishment on people and which very often inflicted physical punishment, in public, on people whom they had decided had infringed certain aspects of tribal law. I could quote at length from the Viljoen Commission report, but I do not want to take up the time of the House. Suffice it to say, we are against this Bill because of the reintroduction of a measure which we found to be abhorrent when it was initially introduced in 1977.

As for the other clauses in the Bill, my colleague and I did not object to the transfer of Mafeking when it was raised in the Select Committee on Co-operation and Development.

Which Select Committee?

Probably the Houghton group.

The Houghton group is probably much more intelligent than the Durban North clique. [Interjections.]

They will survive too, while the others will not.

We shall survive, believe me. One thing we have learnt to do over the years is to survive. [Interjections.]

Yes, we have got old in the process of surviving, but we have survived.

You can say that again.

And we can see that the hon. member too has not exactly grown any younger.

And you have got your leader where you want him too. [Interjections.]

At least we have got a leader.

If possible, let us leave these personal remarks to one side. [Interjections.]

Order!

Thank you. I want to just say a word or two about the Mafeking clause. Could the hon. the Minister tell us just how much consultation took place before the decision was finally made and the State President made the necessary arrangements to hand Mafeking over to Bophuthatswana? We realize that Mafeking is geographically almost entirely encircled by Bophuthatswana. I had a look at the map today and saw that it was so. The point is that there are something like 5 000 or 6 000 White residents in the area. What efforts were made to find out exactly how they felt about the transfer? I have corresponded with some of the residents, and with one important resident in particular who informs me that the business community was largely in favour of the handing over of Mafeking to Bophuthatswana, but they were very concerned that the process had taken two years and that they had been left in a state of considerable uncertainty as a result of the delay. People were very worried about what was going to happen to their businesses and their residences, and they wanted to know about compensation, and so on. They realize, of course, that they will retain their South African citizenship, and indeed the hon. the Minister of the Interior informed the House the other day, in reply to a question from the hon. member for Bryanston, that the voters of Mafeking would probably be transferred to Vryburg for delimitation purposes. So that we know. I also understand that the Indian and Coloured residents, of which there are about 800 and 1 500 respectively …

Business interrupted and debate adjourned.

Mr. Speaker, I move, pursuant to Standing Order No. 24—

That the House do now adjourn.

I never would have thought the day would dawn when it would be necessary for me to call for a debate of this nature. We hear every day about the struggle for survival and how the Republic is being attacked and threatened on all sides. One therefore expects that due precautionary measures have been taken to protect at least our key national strategic positions. I am grateful that there was no loss of life at Sasolburg. I am also grateful that the damage caused did not exceed the amount of R6 million. I am grateful to hear that production at Sasol has not been disrupted.

I therefore wish to express the hope this evening that the explosions at Sasol will be a lesson for all of us for the future.

Having made these statements, I want to tell the Government bluntly that the nation is shocked, that the nation is angry, that the nation demands drastic action. An unforgivable thing has happened. Even though the damage is limited, the fact remains that saboteurs successfully penetrated one of the country’s strategic points and blew up valuable supplies. The damage is not very great, but the rejoicing of our enemies, both internally and abroad, is resounding throughout the world. How did the saboteurs get in there? They ought not to have got in there. There was a hole in the fence. I cannot believe that it was not there earlier. That hole was allegedly the first sign that there was something wrong, and I find that absolutely incredible.

We hear every day about a crisis of survival, and yet the authorities at Sasol were caught unawares by these events. What happened at Sasol will have a tremendous psychological effect on everyone in South Africa. The nation must be reassured by positive and ruthless action. Sasol is responsible for its own security measures, but proper security arrangements were lacking at Sasol. That is a fact.

A commission of inquiry into the inadequate security measures and negligence at Sasol must be appointed immediately. Those at fault must be summarily dismissed, whoever they may be. The Government owes it to the South African nation to provide an unequivocal guarantee that all precautions that are humanly possible have been taken at all our key national strategic points to prevent similar events from occurring elsewhere in the Republic.

†It is the responsibility of the S.A. Defence Force to protect the outside perimeters of key points in times of emergency. Inside of those perimeters that is the responsibility of the authority concerned. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister this evening how much money has been spent, both by the Sasol plants and by Natref, on security during the past 18 months. Were any amounts requested from the Government by either of those plants? Were any of those requests refused? Who is in charge of security there, at Sasolburg and at Natref? What training and what experience has that man had, and what is his age? These are vital questions, questions to which, I believe, the hon. the Minister is obliged to give us the answers this evening.

There are other questions of detail which, I do not believe, it is proper for me to raise here this evening—other important questions involving the security of those installations. I do not expect the hon. the Minister to furnish us with any details concerning those questions. The two other questions, I believe, should, however, be answered. The Salisbury fire gave South Africa a timely warning of what could be expected. Rockets were used in Salisbury. Here, apparently, incendiary devices were attached to the oil tanks at Sasolburg. I ask the hon. the Minister: Can it really be true that there was a hole in the fence and that incendiary devices were attached to the oil tanks themselves? As long ago as January, 1979, a meeting was held with key-point industrial leaders and the Government about security. What happened after that meeting? My guess is there were meetings, investigations and plans. My question to the hon. the Minister is: What actually happened? What has been done to protect each and every key-point industry in South Africa? My impression is that there is bitter frustration at all levels—at the levels of national security and at the levels of the key industries— at the lack of actual physical progress.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister that security depends upon the spending of money. The Government cannot possibly provide all security forces for all national key points in the Republic. At the time of Union there were 1,34 policemen per 1 000 of the population. At the moment I think there are 1,3 policemen to every 1 000 of the population. In Israel there are 3,5 policemen per 1 000 of the population. With inadequate pay scales for the police, and with the Progs and the English Press denigration of every policeman in the Republic, what chance is there of our increasing our doubling the Police Force? Our national servicemen are serving on the borders, being trained or else they are guarding military establishments. The commando system has many imperfections. Therefore, in my opinion, the key-point authorities themselves have to provide for their own security. The Escoms and the Sasols obviously have to be subsidized for security purposes by the Government, but private industry engaged in key production or services must be encouraged to spend money on security measures, and they must be assisted in doing so.

What are their problems? Their problems are threefold. Firstly management is reluctant to spend money unless it is spent with a view to making profits. Insurance covers their losses, and so they do not have to worry about that so much. Their product, however, may be irreplaceable, as is the case with the oil at Sasol. So security managers at many of these key-point industries have to beg, borrow and steal money for security purposes because they cannot persuade their boards to act. Management often believes that it cannot happen to their plant. It is perhaps only after it has happened to them that they might decide to spend money on security. There is no Government incentive to encourage private industry to spend money on its own security. I want to urge the Government tonight to institute an immediate tax deductible security scheme for all key industries. After all, they pay something like 44% of all their profits in taxes. I think it is a good scheme and I think it is worthy of consideration. For example, in the United States, according to figures given by the American Retail Association, members spend 0,5% of their gross turnover on security, and this is all tax deductible. I think I am right in saying that in the Republic we talk of security and we talk of the fight for survival, but we do not have enough action! What we need is urgent legislation to provide both the incentive and the encouragement for security spending by key industries themselves. The pattern of violence is spreading in South Africa. First of all there are attacks on police stations and Government buildings, and when the security of those institutions has been tightened up, the terrorists will turn their attention to private industries. It is my submission that the private industrial sphere is hopelessly inadequately equipped to handle terrorist attacks.

Sasolburg has been a shock to us. The blazing fires of Sasolburg have been a shock to every single South African. I think that retribution and punishment must follow for those whose incompetence made this possible, no matter who they are. If those fires, however, bring home to the people of the Republic, and also to the newspapers of the Republic, the stark reality that the war we have been fighting so far away, at a distance on our borders, is now being waged against us here in the Republic, by both external and internal enemies with whom we shall never ever be able to find peace or make peace, except through total surrender, they will have served some purpose. In my opinion there has never been a greater need for unity of purpose among South Africans than at this present anxious time. So perhaps something good will come of this disastrous happening.

Mr. Speaker, in one of his rarer moments the hon. member for Simonstown has performed a service by initiating this debate tonight.

I want to say immediately that we on these benches share the general grave concern which is felt around the country at this latest manifestation of sabotage which is as much symbolic as it is real. It is symbolic because it is an act or a series of acts which has been clearly designed to strike at Sasol as it is the pride of South African scientific achievement and because it represents the lifeblood of our economy in the form of our present and future fuel resources.

When we take stock of the situation as we are doing tonight in this short debate, we must certainly look afresh, as the hon. member for Simonstown has done, at the whole question of the security measures necessary to give protection to installations like Sasol and other possible targets for sabotage in South Africa. It is abundantly clear from reports thus far that carefully planned though it no doubt was, the attack on the Sasol plant was made all too easy by inadequate security measures. It is appalling to reflect that all that was necessary in the one instance was a pair of wire clippers to gain access to vital installations of this kind.

The point has been made, and it would be naive to think otherwise, that the attack on Sasol was part of a much wider campaign, and it certainly cannot be seen in isolation. There is no doubt that we have entered a new phase of unrest and fermentation of unrest in this country. This poses ever increasing threats to life and property, and the Sasol type operation will be repeated again and again as a crisis situation escalates in South Africa.

Short-term measures to improve our security methods are one thing, but in the long term and the not so long term the provision of real and lasting security for South Africa is another thing altogether. We can talk about employing the Defence Force and we can talk about improving security measures as the hon. member for Simonstown has done—certainly all these things are necessary—but in the immediate and long term the only real security which we can and must strive to achieve, is the security which stems from the contentment, from the loyalty and from the common patriotism of all sections of the population of this country. [Interjections.] In the present crisis situation we must ask ourselves why it is that we are the target of the growing and concerted attention of saboteurs and anarchists who seek to overthrow the State in South Africa and to destroy law and order. This is what we have to ask ourselves. We must also ask ourselves why it is that we are so vulnerable.

If we were a nation united—all 25 million of us—united in our contentment that we share equally with one another the benefits of our common fatherland, united in a common patriotism, then we could easily resist the attempts by outsiders to disturb our peace and subvert law and order. [Interjections.] However, we are not united; we are a nation divided against itself. We are a nation of groups, we are a nation where race differences are accentuated, we are a nation of haves and have nots, we are a nation which practises race discrimination and a nation which disallows equality of opportunity for all our people. [Interjections.]

Until we rectify these things in South Africa, we shall become increasingly vulnerable to sabotage and terrorism. There will be more attempts on Sasol and other installations in South Africa. [Interjections.]

We hear talk of total onslaughts and a total strategy being developed in order to meet those onslaughts, but the so-called total onslaught on South Africa is a major threat only because external elements are very often able to identify with the grievances of the mass of our population who most of the time are neutral in the struggle if they are not indeed hostile. It will remain that way and we shall not be able to develop a complete, total strategy until we can find internal peace and contentment in South Africa. That really is the lesson we have to learn from the events that took place earlier this week at Sasol. If we are looking for real security, that is the lesson we have to learn. I believe this is the lesson we will learn from the sabotage at Sasol and what it symbolizes for South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, I want to disassociate myself immediately and totally from any …

Reality and truth.

… implied justification for the use of violence, explosives and sabotage because it has a political motivation. [Interjections.] I am not interested in what the justification may be. I am not interested in what the causes for unrest may be. I am not prepared to justify violence, subversion and terrorism because of political causes. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Musgrave spoke for his party and it will not help the hon. member for Yeoville to try to repudiate him. [Interjections.]

Order!

I want to say that I agree with much of what the hon. member for Simonstown said about this shocking attack. This attack was to be expected. After the finding of arms caches, the urban terrorism in Johannesburg and the Silverton attack it was inevitable that a major installation would be attacked at some stage.

Why?

Because this is the tactic of the communists who the hon. member for Groote Schuur said are not as dangerous as the Government of South Africa. [Interjections.]

Order!

This is the strategy of planned communist aggression. What is unforgivable, and what I blame the Government for, is that after the warning of the Salisbury attack on petrol installations mentioned by the hon. member for Simonstown, protective measures were not taken to ensure that it did not happen here. It is inconceivable to think that we had a set-up where a guard could be shot with no alarm given, that a shot could be fired and that no warning could be given that a guard had been shot. It is inconceivable that a fence could be cut with no indication that it had been cut and no warning to the people who should have been standing by as a back-up security system.

I do not have the time at my disposal to deal with the sort of security systems which are used in other parts of the world, systems involving electronic warning devices, electrified fences in the really strategic places, continuous contact by radio so that if radio contact is broken at any moment there is an immediate warning, and high-rise fences which could prevent rocket attacks. There are innumerable possibilities.

I charge the Government that it has neglected the civil defence organization of South Africa. It has not given the encouragement, the training, the finance and the motivation for a civil defence system, including the industrial commandos who are supposed to look after industrial security, which would prevent this sort of attack. I believe that there are three lessons in this for us. The first is that the attack on South Africa is real; secondly, that if we gave everybody in South Africa the vote we would not stop this sort of attack. One cannot stop this sort of attack, a military form of attack, a military-trained and indoctrinated attack, by any sort of compromise. I therefore believe that we must act strongly. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Simonstown for invoking the rules of this House here tonight to raise the very serious and important matter of the attack on Sasol installations. Had he not done so, I would have sought the opportunity to do so myself in some way or other. While I find myself in agreement with much of what has been said by hon. members tonight, I do think that their approach, individually and jointly, lacks perspective and balance. In general terms, speakers on the other side elevated the incident at Sasol and Secunda to a major indiscretion by Sasol and the Government. Such a charge would only be warranted if there were a suspicion of irregularity or if a totally unsatisfactory state of affairs existed.

They got through the fence did they not?

I want to state emphatically that this is not the case, and I shall prove it within a few minutes. Reasonable measures have been taken and are in operation at Sasol and Secunda and there are adequate security structures to ensure continuous monitoring and improvement of security measures. I am therefore not prepared to accept the charge that a gross indiscretion has been committed.

*Strong language was used here. The hon. member for Simonstown said that there was a total lack of security. That was more or less the charge which was repeated by the hon. member for Durban Point. But not one of the hon. members, in the time they had at their disposal, made any inquiries from me to hear what the actual security measures which apply there, are. I want to concede at once that there may certainly be room for improvement.

That is for sure.

That was in fact the spirit and the approach of the management of Sasol when I visited Sasolburg yesterday, and held a long talk with him after inspecting the installations there. Their attitude is that they wish to learn from the events and that they are prepared to take a critical look at existing procedures. In fact, they do this on a continuous basis, and I shall also make it my task to involve myself intimately in this re-appraisal. Naturally it was a shock to us as well, just as it was to hon. members on that side of the House. Naturally one experiences it as something to feel worse than sorry about, that terrorists could have been so successful. However, we shall also have to perceive that while we say this to one another, it is also necessary, at the same time, to say that even if one had achieved the highest possible degree of efficiency in preventive security, that still cannot offer any absolute bulwark against sabotage and terrorism. That is why I do not agree with the arguments inherent in the hon. member’s approach that, because a limited success was achieved by the terrorists, the security measures of Sasol are inevitably unsatisfactory. I do not think that is a logical and correct inference to draw, and I shall try to indicate to hon. members on what I base this statement of mine.

They were inadequate.

I wish to repeat, however, that there is room for improvement and that urgent attention is continuously being given to this matter. In support of my statement that the existing measures are reasonable and under the circumstances, were realistic and that adequate structures existed to ensure continuous monitoring and that the necessary adjustments were made in so far as these were necessary, I want to point out two sets of facts.

Firstly, I want to point out to the hon. members briefly the structures which already exist. There is a national strategic point committee, an inter-departmental committee which also involves the private sector and acts in a consultative capacity with regard to the administration of all those installations which are considered to be of critical national importance. That committee makes recommendations on security and protective measures which have to be adopted. Besides its role as adviser, the committee also acts as a monitoring body to ensure that the measures which are recommended are effectively implemented. In addition Sasol co-operates with other bodies, as well as on its own, in certain security frameworks. It was asked in passing who is in charge of security. For years it was retired Police General, and at present it is a retired Police Colonel, a man who underwent proper training, who is in charge of security.

Then, too, there is the committee of refinery managers which consists of all the people involved in the manufacture of oil products. This committee has two standing committees, namely a sub-committee for fire-fighting and a sub-committee for security. There is close and continuous liaison between Sasol and the CSIR. The CSIR does research relating to specific security measures which have to be adopted, and we are already benefiting from this research.

Emanating from the strategic point committee there is continuous co-operation and consultation with the South African Defence Force. At Sasol there is the joint protection committee in which the Sasol commando and the managements of Sasol and Natref are involved, the joint inter-company committee in which all companies are involved, and the civil defence organization. There is proper co-operation between these bodies.

At the three points where the explosions occurred, the security measures were such that before the explosions took place, it was possible to establish that there were problems, but unfortunately there was insufficient time to find the bombs, which had been attached to the installations, before they exploded.

Tell us how the terrorists gained entrance to the installations.

During the last three to six months, long before this event, new expenditure on security and protective installations to an amount of R4 307 000 was approved. The construction of these installations have already been partly completed or is in the process of being completed.

They still got through the fence.

Order! The hon. member for Amanzimtoti keeps on making interjections. He must stop it.

In addition to the amount to which I referred a moment ago, an amount of R3 150 000 was spent during the past three to four years. Moreover, hon. members can also make a positive deduction from the fact that the current costs of security actions, salaries included, amount to more than R2 million per annum. I wish to furnish another very interesting figure. Since the Sasol construction at Secunda was commenced, the expenditure on security already amounts to the tremendous total of R7 million. Surely hon. members can infer, from this expenditure alone, what is happening. I cannot explain to hon. members the nature of all these things; that would be counter-productive, nor do I think hon. members wish me to do so.

I think that our ability to salvage this matter successfully now, after this event has occurred, has been proved here. The followup action went off smoothly, thereby indicating that we were absolutely correctly and well prepared. I think that a word of thanks in this connection is not inappropriate. Consequently I reject the radical way in which the attack was launched here and give the assurance that we have learnt a lesson from this, that we are prepared to admit it. But we should really not throw the baby out with the dirty bath water. Good work has been done and reasonable measures were adopted. Completely modern measures are being applied in the process of installation.

In conclusion I wish to come to the speech made by the hon. member for Musgrave. His leader put it better than he did yesterday when he said on television that everyone should do everything possible to help bring about an acceptable and peaceful constitutional change in this country to ensure that events of this kind will disappear from the scene. That is naivety.

Discussion having continued for half an hour,