Mr. Speaker, I move without notice—

The State President and the Vice State President have both decided not to accept any moneys which may, due to this increase, accrue to them this year.

Question agreed to.

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand a copy of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Land Act. The report of the commission was signed by several hon. members who no longer have any interest in the report. The persons who signed were the hon. the Leader of the Opposition, i.e. Dr. F. van Z. Slabbert, the hon. member for Sandton, Mr. D. J. Dalling, Mr. I. F. A. de Villiers, Mr. C. W. Eglin, Mr. F. J. le Roux (Brakpan) and Mr. H. D. K. van der Merwe, the hon. member for Rissik.

It is remarkable how friends find one another when a crisis develops. Then they are all afraid of the decisions that they themselves helped to make. For example, it is striking that the PFP states firmly that it does not see its way clear to serving on the President’s Council. Hon. members of the Conservative Party—some of them, at any rate—were parties to the establishment of the President’s Council. In their ranks there is even someone who, while a member of the Cabinet, was a party to the establishment of the President’s Council. But now that the report of the President’s Council is being awaited, those hon. members no longer see their way clear to accepting it. They no longer see their way clear to accept their responsibility. Now they are making certain statements, e.g. the statement of the hon. member for Lichtenburg to the effect that the President’s Council is no longer a place for a respectable Nationalist. I hope he will explain to us why, a little over a month ago, he helped to have the chairman of his divisional committee appointed to the President’s Council. [Interjections.]

However, I think we should go into this matter in greater depth. It is due to the absence of Blacks that hon. members of the PFP do not participate in the President’s Council. However, all of a sudden hon. members of the Conservative Party want to contend that the Government has made other proposals to the President’s Council. I challenge the hon. the leader of the CP to show us in what way the proposals of the Government submitted to the President’s Council have changed one iota in the years that have passed. I want to go even further. The hon. member for Waterberg will of course say that there has now been a change in interpretation. Let us, however, see what the previous Prime Minister, Mr. B. J. Vorster, had to say regarding the 1977 proposals with regard to the future constitutional dispensation. I quote from Hansard what he said on Wednesday, 12 April 1978 in this House. This was in reply to an interjection by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition. He had the following to say with regard to the so-called Council of Cabinets (column 4548)—

There are long passages in Hansard pertaining to this matter. Hon. members can read them for themselves.

Now, however, the CP has objected to the interpretation of the present Prime Minister. All I can say is that the interpretation does not differ one iota from that of Mr. Vorster. The hon. the leader of the CP must please reply to the following question. How can it take a leader five years—because when I calculate the time from 1977 to 1982, I arrive at five years—to decide whether something is wrong or not? Of course, that is true to his nature. At one state it took him four days to decide whether he was the leader of the HNP. [Interjections.]

Actually 4½ days.

The hon. the leader of the CP will of course say that he could not reply before the time. He had a newspaper at his disposal in which he could reply, but he did not. Or has the hon. member for Waterberg perhaps been intriguing constantly during those five years since 1977? [Interjections.] I am sure the hon. the leader of the CP is necessarily aware that the hon. member sitting right behind him, the hon. member for Rissik, has by his own admission been a member of Aksie Eie Toekoms since last year. [Interjections.]

What now? [Interjections.]

Of course.

You are speaking nonsense!

No, I am not speaking nonsense. It is true.

That is an infamous lie! [Interjections.]

There are hon. members on this side who can confirm this.

I say it is an infamous lie!

There are hon. members on this side who can confirm it.

You are telling infamous lies!

No, I am not lying.

Order! The hon. member for Rissik must withdraw the words “infamous lies”.

Sir, I withdraw them.

Order! The hon. member must rise when he does so.

Mr. Speaker, I beg your pardon. However, it is not true.

Hon. members of the CP have claimed that the Press was always trying to play them off against the NP and only wanted to undermine them. Of course this is true. It is now clear to everyone what the Press tackled the hon. member about. It was because he consistently refused to say whether he stood by the Prime Minister. Instead, he always said he stood by the policy of the NP. Of course he stood by that policy, but as he interpreted it for himself. Because let us now consider the matters the hon. members want to discuss, those members who differ on the question of powersharing and division of power. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition has said that their idea of power-sharing differs vastly from that of this side of the House. Of course this is so.

It is just that your policy is more stupid. [Interjections.]

It is remarkable that empty vessels always make the most noise.

Who is talking!

Those hon. members of the CP will tell me we believe in division of power. I use that word. It is a term we on this side of the House use, and it is generally used in connection with Coloured Politics. Sir, one can divide, and indeed, in his speech in the Skilpad Hall the hon. the leader of the Conservative Party said that he believed in each group having its own residential areas, community life and schools. We, too, believe in this. We also believe in power-sharing.

The Free State stands by the CP.

Allow me to tell that hon. member something about the Free State. The Free State may be small, but I am going to tell that hon. member something about the Free State today: No one will ever be able to govern this country in the future if he cannot govern the Free State. [Interjections.] I see that the hon. member for Waterkloof is now also awake. [Interjections.] Now the truth can also dawn on him. [Interjections.] I said that we, too, believe in division of power. But a State does not only consist of groups having their own community life, own schools and the like. There are also such matters as transport, defence, finance and the Treasury. There are also matters such as the police and health. In his speech in the Skilpad hall the hon. member said—things went rather slowly—“ons glo in ekonomiese interafhanklikheid”. That signifies considerable progress for a conservative party—economic interdependence.

When one has taken division as far as possible in a process of division of power between White and Coloured, there are still a large number of departments such as those I have just mentioned. What does one do about them? I challenge hon. members of the Conservative Party to spell this out. Today we are here to discuss matters with each other, and I therefore invite them to spell this out. We are living in the year 1982, and I therefore urge them not to make vague statements, but to spell out their standpoint.

I want to make a few suggestions as to how one can deal with those departments. The first possibility is to operate on a basis of baasskap. Some hon. members in the CP support baasskap fairly blatantly. We remember how good they looked in their T-shirts in the front row of the Skilpad Hall in Pretoria.

The AWB!

Yes, the AWB. The hon. the leader of the Conservative Party invited them to cast their lot with him. They believe in out and out baasskap.

That is not the truth.

It is the truth. [Interjections.] The second possibility is to give the Coloureds a homeland, but then they must spell out where the homeland will be. They must spell out these spotted stories for us. There is talk of a spotted homeland.

Tell us what you are going to do about the Indians.

The hon. the Leader of the Conservative Party must spell out the spotted stories he is telling. Spell things out and tell us which one of the few hundred group areas are not inside South Africa. Spell it out so that we may know in which direction the policy of the Conservative Party will lead.

As regards the homelands, I must quote to hon. members what the hon. the leader of the Conservative Party had to say at the inaugural meeting of his party. I should be glad if the hon. member would spell out to us what this means. I quote from his speech—

What does this mean?

That is a very good question.

I quote further—

That was fancy footwork.

What does the hon. member mean by “eie gesagsinstellings moet hê”? How far does that authority go? What is the relationship between the various governmental institutions? The hon. member must spell all this out to us clearly—after all, we are now in 1982—and tell us if their policy makes provision for one master. Will there be only one master? Tell us what the Conservative Party’s plans are. The hon. the leader of the Conservative Party has himself said that he accepts that there is a crisis, but he is not prepared to accept that we on this side of the House can put him off his stride with crises. In times of crisis, leaders must lead.

There is a third possible way in which the situation can be handled, namely that after the power of each group has been divided to the maximum extent, one must arrive at futher agreements so that the various groups can co-exist with each other. It does not matter whether one calls this “agreement”, “co-responsibility”, “a joint say” or whatever.

Until very recently the hon. the leader of the Conservative Party also supported this policy. In this connection I refer to the NP’s election manifesto.

Read section 4.

Yes, I am coming to section 4. The hon. the leader of the Conservative Party signed the manifesto. Section 4 reads—

No, read the section from the beginning.

Very well, I shall do so. The first part of the section deals with power-sharing. Now listen to what this all means. I quote—

Does the hon. member know what that means? I continue—

The hon. member signed this.

Read the rest of the sentence as well.

The rest of the sentence is exactly the same today as it was before. I quote—

But those hon. members are running away; they are now afraid of what they themselves helped to create. The hon. the leader of the CP signed this document. One must not just read one sentence like the hon. member for Langlaagte did. One must read the entire document. The question I ask myself is whether they believe what they signed. I should like to know from the hon. member what all this means. Did he not believe in it when he signed it? I shall read to hon. members what he also signed, among other things. I quote from the manifesto—

Is this what the hon. member wanted to know? What do they still want to know? What more must I read from this document that the hon. member signed? I should like the hon. the leader of the CP to explain to us what this quotation from his speech in Pretoria means—

What does “gesagsinstelling” mean here? What is it to have authority over? Does that authority have any connection with anyone else? I should like the hon. the leader of the CP to spell this out to us. This is what we want to know from him. That is what we are here for. Does each of those peoples only have authority over its own affairs? What about finance, the police and defence? If one declares war, must they all declare war? What are they to do? No, Sir, we know these stories. This intriguing did not start yesterday. This has been going on for some time now. The best example of this that I have seen was when the hon. the Leader of the CP stated the other day that the fact that he had praised the hon. the Prime Minister so much in his constituency had cost him 500 votes in the election. This is the best proof of the political diet of people who had never heard of the Prime Minister before the time. They did not know the hon. the Prime Minister, they only knew clandestine writers and politicians. Hon. members of the CP must explain all these things to us.

What is the NP’s attitude in this connection? The hon. the Prime Minister spelt it out to hon. members quite clearly during the no-confidence debate. I shall only repeat a few things. He said (Hansard, 1982, col. 133)—

Hon. members must bear this in mind. The hon. member for Langlaagte must please go and tell this repeatedly to his constituency, if he still has one. The same goes for the hon. member for Barberton, the hon. member for Rissik and the hon. member for Waterkloof, if they still have constituencies.

Resign and I shall stand against you in your constituency.

I think the play “’n Seder val in Waterkloof” was written about the hon. member for Waterkloof.

What is this entire rumpus about? Why is that party sitting there? I shall tell you why they are really sitting there. I say the hon. the leader must look around him; the hon. members sitting there are Dr. Connie Mulder’s election committee, with the exception of the new members who came later. I note he said he did not know whether he was a leader, but when the bell rings, he will fight at least one round. I hope he manages one round. He knows, too, that it is that same election committee which with Dr. Connie Mulder’s aid, had the hon. member for Waterberg elected leader of the NP in Transvaal.

[Inaudible.]

Yes, the hon. member for Rissik will not understand these things; he should rather tell hon. members why, for the past number of years, he has gone on holiday in Letaba with Willie Marais, Willie Wonderboom. Come on, tell them.

I can choose my own friends. What is more, I can look my friends in the eye. [Interjections.]

The hon. member is a minister of religion. He should read what is written about being known by the company one keeps. [Interjections.]

What is all this about? What it is all about is that the hon. the Prime Minister issued a statement. Does the hon. member for Langlaagte want me to read the entire statement again, or need I only read the part about power-sharing?

You can read anything you like; you do not understand it in any case.

I shall read what he had to say about power-sharing—

Do you understand it now?

The hon. members of the PFP have stated that they do not think as we do on this matter.

I thought the hon. member for Langlaagte was not listening. Is he just making a noise now?

I merely asked whether you understood it.

Is he only shaking his head or is he speaking? What is he doing? [Interjections.]

I am merely asking whether you understand what you are reading.

My name is not Barnard.

That is for certain.

The hon. the Prime Minister referred in his statement to the PFP when he said—

Rubbish! [Interjections.]

The hon. members of the PFP must not feel bad about it; we have not forgotten them. This is only the first round. [Interjections.] The hon. the leader of the CP said the bell had rung for the first round; we have only just started. [Interjections.]

I quote further from the hon. the Prime Minister’s statement—

Words, words, words.

Yes, words, words, words. It is correct and I agree with the hon. member.

Spell it out!

But I did spell it out. I spelt out what it meant. I said that I believed in division up to a point, and after that I await the proposals of the President’s Council. [Interjections.] The hon. members of the CP are afraid of this; the hon. members of the PFP are not involved. This House alone will decide on the proposals of the President’s Council, and I am just wondering whether the hon. members of the PFP are also going to discuss this.

There is still going to be only one master.

I also wonder whether the hon. members of the CP are going to participate in the discussion. Since they are levelling at us the accusation that the skies are falling because of the word “power-sharing”, they must spell out to us what their concept of power-sharing is, because then we shall also know.

We do not have power-sharing.

No, what does it mean to the hon. members of the CP, because it does not appear in a dictionary. [Interjections.] Hon. members might as well look for themselves. [Interjections.] The hon. members need not worry about the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs; he can take care of himself. For the first time we have a leader in the Transvaal who is going to lead. [Interjections.] The CP have had five years to work out their policy and I hope they will now spell it out to us in detail. I know the hon. the leader of the CP says he will use his best brain—it does not seem to me to be all that fertile, but anyway—to work out the policy for him now. But what have they done over the period of five years? [Interjections.] Why did it take them five years to object to these proposals? [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, I shall do my best to resist the temptation to become intimately involved in the fraternal quarrel which has broken out between hon. members on the Government side and hon. members of the CP. I should just like to tell hon. members of this House that the further this debate develops and the more explanations that are being offered, the more difficult it is for us to determine who are in fact the power sharers and who the power dividers in this House. If I heard the hon. Minister correctly, then hon. members opposite are both power sharers and power dividers.

†Mr. Speaker, as I said the other day when we touched on this issue, both sides are basically right. The reality of the situation is that, according to the 1977 proposals, there was a measure of “magsdeling”. This goes back as far as the occasion when I made my maiden speech as Leader of the official Opposition. It was on that occasion that I said that this represented an important deviation. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I was dealing with the 1977 proposals and I said, inter alia, the following (Hansard, 30 Janurary 1978, col. 36)—

I went on to say this—

Mr. Speaker, this has taken five years because although that was our analysis at the time, every single hon. member on the other side of the House has denied this flatly for the past five years. They denied it and they ran away from the concept of power-sharing until the hon. the Prime Minister spoke about “gesonde magsdeling” the other day. The hon. member for Pinelands quoted from a pamphlet. I came across another one which contained this accusation—

[Interjections.] Who is the man who issued this pamphlet? It is the new leader of the NP in the Transvaal. [Interjections.] It is his pamphlet. His name is given here as information secretary and here he says that it is not power-sharing. [Interjections.] We can go on and on and on in this way. The fact is that we have had the spectacle of a split in the NP not in regard to something for the future but on a 1982 interpretation of a 1977 policy which has already been thrown overboard. That is what it is all about. I wonder what in fact is going to happen when there are changes and when the first Coloured person is brought into the power-sharing structure whether it is at this level or any other level. The hon. the Minister of Environmental Affairs who has just sat down said “spel dit uit”. I want to tell him that that is exactly what we are going to say to this Government during every debate in this session. If he wants other people to “spel dit uit” then he must also spell it out himself. [Interjections.] I want to tell the hon. the Minister that he can start now. He must spell out those areas in which it is possible to separate power. The hon. the Minister has said that they are in favour of “magsdeling”. I put it to the hon. the Prime Minister: Can he separate his department? I put it to the hon. the Minister of Manpower: Can he have separation in his department? I put it to the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs: Is he going to have “magsverdeling” or “magsdeling” in his department? I put it to the hon. the Minister of Finance: Is he going to have this? I put it to the hon. the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications: Is he going to have it? I put it to the hon. the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Information: Is he going to have power-sharing or not? I can put this question to every single hon. Minister on that side. There may be one or two Ministries in which there can perhaps be separation of power between Coloureds and Whites and Indians and Blacks but 17 out of the 20 hon. Ministers are involved with departments in which the sharing of power is essential, and not only the sharing of power between Coloureds and Whites but eventually among Blacks and Coloureds and Whites in South Africa. [Interjections.]

Although much of the attention has been focused on the row between these two parties on the issue of “magsdeling” between Coloureds and Whites, on this occasion I want to draw some attention to a report and recommendations of a commission known as the Buthelezi Commission, because I believe that in many ways the Buthelezi Commission, viewed in an historical perspective, is going to be seen to have been a commission that has presented one of the most important reports ever presented to the people of South Africa. [Interjections.] The summary rejection of the main recommendations of that commission, whilst it may have been predictable, was in my view unfortunate in the extreme. I believe that it is unfortunate that the Government just rejected the main thrust of that commission’s report. The way in which it was done was, of course, an added rebuff, both for Chief Gatsha Buthelezi and for the members of the KwaZulu Legislative Assembly. Let me say quite frankly that in those circumstances I would have expected the response to have come from the hon. the Prime Minister and not the NP leader in Natal. He is not a functionary vis-à-vis KwaZulu. The hon. the Prime Minister should, I believe, have had the good grace and good political judgment to have responded personally to the recommendations that commission presented to the Government. I believe that the Government should have announced that a Cabinet Committee would be investigating that report before the Government responded in the negative way in which it did. I believe that this Government should have had direct consultation with Chief Gatsha Buthelezi and the members of the KwaZulu Executive and legislature before it announced its rejection. Both the Government’s rejection, and the way in which that rejection manifested itself, reflect its arrogance, its stubbornness and its unwillingness to learn from anybody, even an unwillingness to learn any lessons from history. The rejection of the Buthelezi Commission’s findings once again reflects the fact that this Government is totally committed to a White-based ideology, without any willingness on the Government’s part to try to reach agreement or consensus with those Blacks who happen to disagree with the Government. That is the Government’s approach. It is a question of: Take it or leave it. There is no question of negotiation, or any attempt to find consensus. Even at this stage, however, I believe that this Government should give very serious consideration to the recommendations contained in the Buthelezi Commission’s report. I believe that it should be studied by every South African who seriously wants to live in peace and is concerned about the future of this country. I therefore hope that the chairman of the Select Committee on the Constitution is going to see to it that that committee considers, amongst other things, the report of the Buthelezi Commission, because I think it has a direct bearing on one Bill that has already been referred to that committee. I therefore believe that the least that we can do for the people of KwaZulu, and for the Legislative Assembly of the Chief Minister, is to have this Parliament, if not this Government, take note of that report and give it its serious consideration. Hon. members on that side of the House can denigrate the Buthelezi Commission as much as they like, but I believe that if they were to see the work of that commission in its historical and race context, they would realize that it was more than just a commission. I believe that its efforts were a genuine search for peace. I believe it was a reaching out of the hand, an act of courage and faith by one of the most important Black South African leaders of our time. It would have been easy for Chief Buthelezi to have played to the Black gallery and to have said it was a question of one man, one vote in a unitary State or nothing else, just as it is easy for the members of the NP to play to the White gallery and say they insist on separate development. [Interjections.] Chief Buthelezi decided, however, to act differently. He could have expected rebuffs. He knows he will be taunted by the militants amongst the Black community. He nevertheless took his courage in his hands and decided to invite fellow South Africans belonging to various races to embark with him on a course of negotiation in an endeavour to find a peaceful solution to one of the key problems of South Africa. I believe that in doing so Chief Buthelezi not only did Natal, but also South Africa, a tremendous service. I therefore believe that this Government would do well to see that there is, in the Buthelezi Commission’s findings and recommendations, the germ of a solution to the vexed problem of political and human relationships in this country. It would also be seen that the commission has shown that, given the will, negotiation as a process can succeed in South Africa. Apart from the importance of the commission and its origins, I want to stress the importance of some of its key findings. Its pivotal finding was that we in South Africa are all South Africans. Serving on that commission, it became clear that, whether the people of KwaZulu or Natal were Black, White or Brown, whether they were poles apart culturally, linguistically and religiously or not, they were all South Africans and they wanted to stay South Africans. That was fundamental. I wish the hon. members on the other side of the House, who say that, because a man is a Zulu, being a South African is not as important to him as being a Zulu, could have heard the dignified way in which the Zulu members, the Black members, of that commission unshakeably and insistently said that they were South Africans and were determined to remain members of the South African community. That is the first thing we cannot ignore when we are dealing with the constitutional future of South Africa.

Not only did the commission find that KwaZulu-Natal was an integral part of the Republic of South Africa, but they found that the lives and the various interests of the people there were so intertwined and that the people were so interdependent that KwaZulu-Natal could not be administered except as a single geographic entity. That is a fact. The people in the commission did not all start from the same starting point but had varying views on this, but the whole weight of evidence bearing down on them taught them that in fact the only way one could administer KwaZulu-Natal was as a single entity. It became obvious from an examination of the map and the infrastructure that consolidation was not possible. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Finance, who is the leader of the NP in Natal: Given the financial circumstances of South Africa today, how long is it going to take for the Government to complete its consolidation plans in Natal? Is it going to take one year, five years, 10 years or 20 years? The hon. the Minister does not know and he is stringing the Black people along on the prospect of independence given to them by the Government, but on the basis of no prospect of a consolidated homeland. Does the hon. the Minister agree with the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt who said that consolidation was no longer possible, that consolidation by drawing new boundaries and transferring land was no longer possible? He said we were going to have to spend R6 billion and that, once that had been done, the economic potential of the independent national States would not have been increased by as much as half a cent. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he agrees with that analysis made by the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt. I want to put a third question to the hon. the Minister coming from Natal. Does he believe it is feasible to have an independent KwaZulu which is spread like a patch-work quilt right across Natal? Does he really believe that that is feasible? No, Sir, the Government must find another way out and they know it.

Thirdly, the commission found that, while race discrimination had to go, cultural diversity, group apprehensions and unevenness in development had to be recognized. So they did not recommend a “one man, one vote” unitary system, but said that we must rather move in the direction of everybody participating in the law-making process and placed an emphasis>on regionality, the guaranteed participation of minorities in government and the recognition of the perceived cultural interests of the various groups in society. The commission accepted the important aspect that the process of negotiation is itself an important part of the ultimate solution. Negotiation is more than a process, it is part of the solution. The commission did not suggest that one could have KwaZulu-Natal transformed by the wave of a wand. The commission recognized that there were existing institutions as well as existing doubts, fears and prejudices. That is why the commission recommended, and why we recommended, that the process of change in South Africa should go hand in hand with the process of negotiation, change and negotiation reinforcing one another until a new system of peaceful co-existence can be evolved. However, while the Government is toying with the concept of bringing Coloureds and Indians into a common government system, with Whites and at the same time has given notice that it is deliberately going to exclude Blacks from participating in those structures, I believe that the findings of the Buthelezi Commission give the Government both some words of advice and some words of warning.

I want to refer to some of the findings with regard to attitudes found in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Just as the Government, first of all, is considering changing its policy to introduce Coloureds and Indians into the White political structure, if I may use that term, because its policy is not working, so according to the findings of the commission it is appropriate for the Government to reexamine its KwaZulu-Natal policy because that too is not working. It is appropriate that it should do so because I believe that the findings of the Buthelezi Commission show that independence, as the Government would have it, is no longer a practical option for South Africa, and that the time has come for the Government to reconsider and to reverse its policy. In-depth surveys conducted by independent agencies show that the majority of all the people in Natal—the Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians—reject the concept of independence. Blacks, Whites, Coloureds and Indians all reject the concept of independence. It shows at the same time that the majority of the Whites, the Coloureds, the Indians and the Blacks are prepared to negotiate some form of conjoined government for all the peoples of KwaZulu and Natal.

I believe it is a positive and hopeful sign that people are prepared to negotiate some form of conjoined government in that area. If that is the positive word of helpful advice, let me add that I believe that contained in the report of the Buthelezi Commission, are some dire warnings to the Government, and indeed to all of us in South Africa. Whatever regional policy is adopted, the Black people told the Buthelezi Commission that what is essential to peace and stability is the fact that the Blacks should have representation at the central government structure. That is cardinal to the findings. It is cardinal to the attitude of Black South Africans. If the Government does not recognize it it is going to continue with the process of destabilizing the South African society. Whatever our local solutions are, the concept of having Blacks represented in the central section of our Government is critical to peace in this country.

I must warn the Government that I believe it is playing with fire, and that it is further going to polarize political attitudes if it proceeds with its plans to include Coloureds and Indians in the central government structure, while, at the same time, it closes the door on Black South Africans, denying them the same access to the central government structure. [Interjections.] It is going to divide. It is going to polarize. It is going to split this country into warring hostile factions.

A second warning comes to the Government and to all of us. That is that frustration is mounting amongst Black people in South Africa. They are frustrated by their lack of social and economic progress. They are also frustrated by the lack of meaningful political reform. While all the indications are that Blacks, like Whites, Coloureds and Indians, are at heart basically modest and moderate in their goals, the fact is that the Buthelezi report shows that the majority of Black people see little or no prospect of peace in South Africa. Close on 90% of people believe that there is going to be violence, that unless there is a fundamental change brought about in the lives of Black people in South Africa by a change in Government policy, we are heading for violence and revolution in South Africa. That is the finding of the Buthelezi Commission. It is not confined to the urban areas. It stretches right around South Africa.

Not only that. The other ugly evidence contained in this report is that over recent years, in their frustration, more and more Black people have turned to confrontation and to violence as an instrument for the bringing about of redress of their grievances. I think it is frightening to find that some 70% say that, given the circumstances, there will be massive strikes for political reasons. Some 56% of people say that there will be violence and terrorism. Nearly 50% of the people say that young people will leave the country in increasing numbers to be trained and armed abroad in order to come and fight here in South Africa. That is the picture which is painted by the Buthelezi Commission report.

The simple lesson of the Buthelezi Commission is this. While there is a very good reason, a very real reason to believe that reconciliation in South Africa is still possible, it also shows that under the present Government policy the hopes of reconciliation are receding. What we are faced with now is the prospect of increasing confrontation, increasing violence and—in the words of the Buthelezi Commission report—even a revolution. That is why we put it to the Government that it has not given consideration to the social and political changes needed to change the South Africa of today.

The hon. the Prime Minister, in a speech he made in Pretoria on Thursday evening last week, is reported to have said the following—

That is how his speech was reported in Die Burger. He continued—

I now want to put this to the hon. the Prime Minister: What about the 5 million Zulus? Is the hon. the Prime Minister prepared to drive them into the camp of our country’s enemies when he does in fact have the opportunity to co-operate with them? [Interjections.]

You are driving them there.

Why does the hon. the Prime Minister only act specifically with respect to the Coloured people? Why does the hon. the Prime Minister want the Coloureds on his side to fight a common enemy while he rejects the Zulus and orders them to get out of South Africa? [Interjections.] He tells the Zulus that they will have to relinquish their South African citizenship and become citizens of an independent country. If the hon. the Prime Minister continues with this plan to bring the Coloured people and the Whites together without realizing that he will also have to involve the Black people in that process so that they can all be South Africans and together with us defend the borders of the country, he is leading South Africa to disaster. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Sea Point, who has just resumed his seat, does not understand that the policy of the NP with regard to Coloureds and Asians on the one hand, and its policy with regard to Black people on the other, have always been different policies, that they still are and will remain so in the future. I am also saying this for the information of the hon. members of the CP, who now want to make out that the NP is following the same policy with regard to all people of colour in South Africa. We follow our different policies for sound scientific, traditional and historic reasons, and we will stand by that. I do not wish to go into detail at this stage about what the hon. member for Sea Point said, but I shall do so on another occasion.

Sir, a number of MP’s have broken away from the NP, and we on this side of the House, as well as the voters, would like to have more details concerning who their friends are and what their policy is. Because, as the hon. the Minister said, one is known by the company one keeps and one is judged on one’s policy. As far as their friends are concerned, I am told that since he left the caucus of the NP, the hon. the leader of the CP and certain members of his party have been in contact with the Afrikaner-Weerstandsbeweging, the AWB. The hon. member for Waterberg has had contact with the AWB. I put it to the hon. member for Waterberg that he has, in fact, held talks with Eugene Terre’blanche of the AWB. [Interjections.] Now that hon. member is giving me a stony look, but I ask him whether he has held talks with Mr. Eugene Terre’blanche of the AWB. Let me tell the hon. members what my information is in this regard, and I have every reason to believe that this information is correct. I have been told that the hon. member for Waterberg and five or six other members of the CP held talks with Mr. Eugene Terre’blanche, the leader of the AWB, as well as with General Cockroft, the leader of Arbsa, the so-called Aksie Red Blank Suid-Afrika, and with other people as well. On that occasion, the point discussed was that the conservative movement in South Africa should consolidate, broad agreement was reached on a strategy for mutual support. Mr. Terre’blanche’s attitude was that he could not advise AWB members on which political party they should belong to, as he said that he represented a national movement. Recently there has been close co-operation among the AWB, Dr. Connie Mulder and Dr. Alkmaar Swart of the AET. As a result of the direct mediation of Mr. Terre’blanche, Drs. Connie Mulder and Alkmaar Swart have decided to throw their weight behind the CP. Dr. Connie Mulder and Mr. Terre’blanche had a meeting in Ventersdorp on Thursday 25 March, which they described as “highly successful”. At that meeting it was decided that Mr. Terre’blanche should try to bring about a reconciliation between the HNP and the CP. [Interjections.] As a result of the efforts of Mr. Eugene Terre’blanche, the hon. member for Waterberg made certain conciliatory noises regarding the HNP in his speech at Rustenburg last Thursday evening, 25 March 1982. The hon. member for Waterberg clearly stated on that occasion—Gen. Cockroft said the same thing on 23 March in the Pretoria Town Hall—that he has no objection to members of the CP becoming members of the AWB as well. Due to the actions of those hon. members, the AWB is now suddenly relevant enough for us to be able to refer to them in this House. However, we must ask ourselves: Who are the AWB, what do they stand for and where are they going?

I have in my hand an official document of the AWB in which they set out their policy. Unfortunately, I only have a little time at my disposal, but I just want to focus the attention of hon. members on certain aspects of their policy. Throughout the document, what is termed the “Brits-Joodse parlementére stelsel in Suid-Afrika” is condemned. I quote—

I must also point out that the AWB raise serious objections to the party system. The document goes on—

The hon. member for Waterberg is to speak shortly, and I want to challenge him to say where he stands with regard to the AWB. This is what we want to know. The following is said about the Press—

With regard to the economy, they say—

Regarding agricultural policy they say—

Where does the CP stand? They and the AWB have promised each other mutual support. The Supreme Council of the AWB is also referred to in this document, but I do not wish to go into that further. The document continues—

It goes on—

The document goes on to deal with the various party-political forms of government. The document I have in my hand, comes from Mr. Eugene Terre’blanche. He gave it to one of my people last week. Let me quote a further extract—

Then they put forward their alternative. Firstly, they say that there should be national representation: Volksverteenwoordiging deur middel van “gekwalifiseerde Blanke stem”. It is also interesting to note that according to the principles of the AWB, this House should have an advisory legislative say. In other words, the legislative authority, viz. this House, may not make laws. However, it may give advice on laws. There are a number of the hon. members of the CP who do not know about this, as there has been scheming with the AWB behind their backs. I would not be at all surprised if some of them are astonished. Do those hon. members deny that there has been co-operation between them and the AWB? Does the hon. leader of the CP deny that they met one another?

I even met you.

I am very pleased to hear that. I came to know you much better after I had met you. We now have an admission by the hon. the leader of the CP that he held talks with the leader of the AWB.

He also held talks with you.

He held talks with me in the days when his principles, as he expressed them, were still the same as mine. [Interjections.]

When you wanted to drive him out of the NP.

The manifesto of the AWB reads further—

Furthermore, they say—

The report continues in this vein. Today in this House, we are compelled to examine the AWB. During the past week, in statements issued by the leader of the AWB and published in the Hoofstad in the Transvaal, it was clearly stated that this group sees their future as more militant. They say that if they do not like the new constitution, they will become more militant. In a pamphlet distributed last week in Pretoria, the following was said by the leader of the AWB in a call to people to attend a meeting—

What is implied here, is clearly a militant approach on the part of the AWB. Now the question arises: Why should the leader of the CP suddenly seek shelter with the leader of the AWB? I just want to tell the hon. the leader of the CP that my information is that in the ranks of the AWB, it is a foregone conclusion that the man who is to become the leader of the CP, is Dr. Connie Mulder. However, they regard the hon. member for Waterberg—as they put it—as the man of the moment, and therefore he has to be tolerated. The AWB is on the wrong path. They are sowing the seeds of revolution against authority, against the Government and against democracy in the hearts of our Whites, a revolution against fellow-Afrikaners who wish to see that very authority maintained in South Africa. The question we should ask, is: Do they and their supporters who sit in this House not realize that they are contributing towards the creation of a climate of revolution in South Africa? It seems to me that the hon. member for Waterberg suddenly realized that he needed a military wing. So he enlisted the AWB. Now I should like to show the hon. members what the uniforms of the hon. member for Waterberg and his military wing look like. I have here a T-shirt sporting the badge of the AWB. On the top of the badge is an eagle. It looks like a swastika gone wrong. If the hon. the leader of the CP has not yet received such a T-shirt, I am willing to give him this one. [Interjections.]

I want to say this to the hon. member for Waterberg today: It has become necessary for each one of us who sits in this House to raise his voice against the methods being used by people like the AWB. It has become necessary that that leader, too, should speak out in no uncertain terms against them on behalf of his party. It has also become necessary, if he has or has had connections with them for him to renounce those people in the interests of the image of decency of the Afrikaner and in the interests of levelheadedness, as well as in the interests of sound race relations in South Africa, and say to them that he will not go along with them.

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin with the hon. member for Pretoria Central. I think the hon. member wasted his entire speech on a subject which to my mind is irrelevant except in this respect that as far as the AWB is concerned there is no official connection between the AWB and myself …

Official or unofficial?

… and that if a conversation did take place, I told them precisely where I stood. Those people know that people are joining the CP who endorse its principles and who submit to its discipline, and that there is no question of mutual support, particularly not support on the part of the CP for the AWB. However, the hon. member is like a Don Quixote who tilted at a windmill, and that is no enemy, not for me. As far as I am concerned, his entire speech was wide off the mark. Nevertheless I wish to say that that hon. member is most certainly not the person to take me to task on the matter of decency and morality, and I wish to leave it at that. [Interjections.] That hon. member is not the man to take me to task on those virtues.

Mr. Speaker, I referred to the hon. member’s reference to the supposed mutual support and my so-called encouragement to people to become members of the AWB. That is absolute rubbish, and I am telling him so to his face. As regards the question of members of the CP, there is as far as we are concerned the provision that a person may only be a member of this party and may not be a member of other parties as well. [Interjections.] The hon. member said that I went to seek refuge with those people. Again I say it is absolute rubbish. I do not need protection there. The hon. the Minister of Law and Order will protect me. [Interjections.] I rely on him. The hon. member also asked me: Who are our friends? Our friends are the people who endorse the principles and the general guidelines which I spelled out at the founding congress of the CP, and who submit to the discipline of this party.

While I am dealing with the hon. member for Pretoria Central now, let me say that the hon. member should also revise his politics a little. On one occasion he was on a visit to South West Africa, together with a group of MP’s. In conversations which took place there, that hon. member put forward certain of his standpoints. For example he stated that an election against Swapo could not be won as long as the NP of South West Africa, and in conjuction with it, Aktur, tried to cling to petty matters pertaining to exclusiveness and in so doing alienated the Black and Brown population groups. He was then asked to explain what “petty matters” were. If it meant separate entrances to public buildings and so on, the other people agreed with him, but if petty matters included separate residential areas and exclusive schools then the NP of South West Africa would not regard these as petty matters, and would not relinquish its claim to exclusiveness either. The reaction of the hon. member for Pretoria Central was that separate schools were in fact one of the petty matters which the NP of South West Africa … [Interjections.] … would have to relinquish for the sake of survival. [Interjections.]

I wish to deny that most strenuously. It is an untruth.

The hon. member for Sea Point raised certain matters. I take it amiss of hon. members of the official Opposition for alluding in one speech after another to the possibility of violence which will break out as a result of the fact that we do not give attention to peoples’ frustrations. That kind of language is not conducive to calming people down; instead it gives them a pretext on the basis of which they will want to resort to violence if things do not change as they want them to change.

Do you remember your speech in Windhoek in 1976?

The hon. member was not there; what does he know about it? I do not even know about a speech which I made there in 1976.

In any case, perhaps the hon. member was correct when he referred to the 5 million Zulus. If we in South Africa want sound relations, then this party is in agreement with the NP and any party that wishes to establish sound relations among Whites, Coloured people, Indians and Black people. [Interjections.] We are in agreement with them and they need not look over their shoulders to see where we are; we shall be there in favour of sound relations. Apparently, however, we do not all understand sound relations to mean the same thing. Nevertheless I wish to link up with this idea expressed by the hon. member for Sea Point: If it is true that we do not wish to chase the Coloured people into the arms of the enemy, then it is equally true that we do not wish to chase the millions of Black people into the arms of the enemy. Nor should we antagonize those people who are integrated into the economy of South Africa in this mutual independence in the economic sphere, those people who, if they were to display hostile attitudes, could cause a dangerous situation to arise in South Africa, nor should we chase them into the enemy camp.

In many respects I quite like the hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs, because he is an amusing hon. member and there are certain anecdotes of his which are very entertaining. I am thinking for example of the anecdote about half a paw-paw, and so on, which one can repeat anywhere. Today, however, the hon. the Minister was at his best as far as acrimoniousness and derogatoriness was concerned, and he was in a derisive mood. I must say that he is then at his best, his very best.

He referred to a remark which I had made when I was with the hon. the Prime Minister in Rustenburg. If he was in the caucus he would know that I had used that expression and image in the caucus as well. Does the hon. the Minister now wish to imply that I was false by saying such a thing about the chief leader, or is it impossible for him to believe that I can say something kind about the chief leader, and then on another occsion differ with him on a certain point?

This is the first time I agree with you.

But why refer derogatorily to it then? Why did he quote it so aggressively yesterday? I was referring to the enemies of South Africa, and I paid tribute to the hon. the Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Defence and at present Prime Minister, for the strong standpoint which he adopted towards the total onslaught on South Africa. Referring to that total onslaught on South Africa I said: Under those circumstances, if stormy winds start blowing, the mouse cowers down and the eagle rises. Now it is almost as though the hon. the Minister wanted to imply that the hon. the Prime Minister was the eagle, while his opponents were mice. I do not begrudge him the little pleasure he may derive from drawing that kind of inference, but I do not think it was very kind of him to suggest it.

The hon. the Minister said quite a number of venomous things. For example he referred very disparagingly to my leadership and to my having allegedly said that I was no leader. He was in the caucus when I said that I was not married to a “job”; when the bell rang for me at the end of my round, I walked out. I am a free man. That is the approach. Hon. members will know that without tattling about it outside the caucus.

He asked why it had taken us five years to come to a decision. Surely the fact of the matter was that we held a caucus in the Synod Hall. On that occasion the hon. the Prime Minister gave an elucidation of the plans and proposals, and surely, on that occasion, questions were asked about and a discussion was held on issues such as powersharing and so on. I have some of them with me here. If I have the time, I shall refer to them. There were discussions, and on the question of power-sharing certain replies were given. Subsequently an election was held. I had pointed out two very delicate matters in the proposals we had before us. The one was in fact concerned with the powers and functions of the Council of Cabinets. I asked whether it would not become a growth point of powers at the expense of the powers and authority of the House of Assembly and our own Government. The second was concerned with the extensive powers of the State President. In view of the extensive powers and authority of the State President, I postulated that it would become a storm centre in our politics, because the question that arose was: To what population group would that State President belong, that person who, if a position of stalemate were to arise in the political situation, would ultimately have to break the impasse and say what the decision should be? Those were two points which I raised there. We then fought an election and the draft Bill was published. What happened then? We held a discussion on the issue of the transfer of powers from this Parliament to the other Parliaments and the fact that the Council of Cabinets would have the power to make recommendations for the transfer of authority. I went to discuss the matter, and the hon. the Prime Minister gave me a friendly reception in this regard. I put certain reservations to him, and he referred me to the chairman of the commission, the then Minister of the Interior, Mr. Schlebusch. I told him that I had a problem with certain matters, and I did not say this in a challenging way. There was no hint of the intrigue the hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs was talking about. I stated candidly that I had a problem in this regard. It was discussed with the caucus groups, but was not disposed of there. It was then brought before the caucus, and a few questions were asked, after the hon. the Minister had elucidated the matter in broad outline, in my humble opinion, not specifically enough. I myself sat there with an entire speech which I should have liked to have made. At that state the hon. the Prime Minister rose and said that there would be plenty of time to discuss this matter, and there was, but that time never came, did it? It did not come in the caucus; it did not come at all, because the matter was then referred … [Interjections.] Yes, we know our facts. The matter was then referred to the commission, and the commission did not give a final decision on the matter either. It came forward with a recommendation for the establishment of a President’s Council. The recommendations in the draft legislation were referred just as they were, together with the memorandums, to the President’s Council. Then we said: “Prens en vrede”—the President’s Council will make the recommendations for us! In other words, if there has to be a discussion on this matter, that discussion has still to take place, and that is the stage we are in now.

Surely it did not come about as a result of a caucus meeting. It was announced long before the time that we would refer the matter to a joint Select Committee of Parliament. Why do you not state the facts as they really are?

I am, in fact; stating the facts in chronological sequence.

Oh no, you are not stating the facts.

I have just been saying that that opportunity never came. I have not been apportioning blame, but the hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs asked what we did over this period of five years. However, the matter was placed in cold storage, in the sense that it was referred to the President’s Council, and the President’s Council would come forward with recommendations.

The hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs had a great deal to say here about my allegedly having taken four days to decide whether I would join the HNP or not. I do not like telling a Minister he is talking rubbish, but that is in fact absolute rubbish. [Interjections.] If that hon. member only knew what is waiting for him! Surely that is not an argument. It is simply political smear tactics, and I do not have much respect for such an approach.

The hon. the Minister also said that we had invited the AWB to join us. That is not true. They were not invited to join us. Those people themselves indicated that if there were some of their number who wanted to join the CP, they would do it on an individual basis, and then they would endorse the principles and policy of this party and of course submit to the discipline of the party.

But they remain members of the AWB.

That matter will be thrashed out with them if it is necessary … [Interjections.] … in the same way as the NP took action in the ’forties in regard to certain people who had dual membership, but whose conduct was not reconcilable with the best interests of the NP.

The hon. the Minister had a great deal to say here about how we should spell out what we meant. I understand that this spelling out process is only now in progress on the NP side. Now, for the first time, they are spelling things out with a vengeance. There are hon. members who have a lot to say now about rotten leadership in the past. There are some of those hon. members who went out of their way to indicate how they voted when I was unanimously elected Transvaal leader. I do not want to disclose their secrets now. However, an hon. member said things here which indicated that there was a kind of espionage process taking place, to watch people’s movements. How does he know so precisely who was where?

[Inaudible.]

I can give an account of every place I visited and of all the conversations which took place there. However, if this is taking place, I wish to ask what has happened to freedom of association for ordinary citizens. [Interjections.]

In his speech the hon. member for Pietersburg asked a very important question, namely: Who governs me and my people? I think this is the cardinal question in the politics of South Africa. The question is: How are we being governed? Who is governing who? Am I being governed on a basis of power-sharing by a Government consisting of Whites and non-Whites, or by my own people? That is the heart of the matter. For any nation with political self-respect it is of material importance to know who is governing it. This is the issue on which a war of liberation is being fought. This is the issue over which there are major conflicts between nations. My standpoint was, and is, that one Government for this country and one Cabinet for South Africa consisting of Whites and non-Whites is unacceptable. I cannot accept it. That was and is my standpoint.

Now I should like to give a few assurances on behalf of the CP. Firstly, we do not intend causing any disruption in the administration of the country to achieve cheap and petty political gains or to cause embarrassment. Secondly, we dissociate ourselves from people who advocate violence, terrorism and sabotage as political methods, or for whatever other reason they may do it. Thirdly, we have nothing to do with extremists who reflect an ignoble, a racist or an un-Christian image of our nation. We repudiate such conduct and such statements, whoever may be responsible for them. Fourthly, the Government may count on us when the defence, the welfare and the good name of our country are at stake. This is our country, as well as the country of everyone else here, and we strive to do our best for it. We shall combat racial hatred, however, wherever it occurs. We do not believe in the idolization of a distinctive nation and we do not believe in the idolization of our own nation, but in addition to that I wish to say that we refuse …!

Surely those are words you heard from me.

Then they were good words.

But surely the hon. the Prime Minister did not coin the word “idolization”. Before he used it in the caucus, I used it from one platform to another and also when addressing the Rapportryers. We are all entitled to use that word. As I have said, we refuse to allow our ethnic nationalism to be denigrated as racism or as a stumbling block to sound human or ethnic relations. This may perhaps apply to the hon. members sitting on my right, who, in reality, are spiritually to the left of me. We are genuinely tired of the liberalistic recipe for human relations which insults or undermines our nationhood.

Furthermore, we shall unashamedly adopt a standpoint in favour of White identity and political control. However, we must add that we shall not allow people under our banner to insult other nations and groups or undermine their rights. We believe in freedom with justice. However, this does not mean that we apologize for the fact that we are White or that we expect other people who are members of other nations or groups to feel inferior in their relations with us and our people. We are not advocates of the isolation of the Republic of South Africa vis-à-vis the outside world. We believe in sound diplomatic and commercial relations, but we condemn foreign pressure which wishes to overthrow our social and political order with psychological, economic, political and even religious and military weapons and to deprive our nation of its political control. We also reject the intimidation which is occurring internally and which demands that we set our own house in order in such a way here in South Africa that we will satisfy so-called friends in the outside world. This does not mean to say that we do not value friends; nor does it mean that we shall not see in what way we can accommodate people. However, there is a process of intimidation in progress, which boils down to our either doing certain things or we will bring turmoil upon ourselves. We do not believe in provocation, but we abhor extortion.

There are a few elementary facts which we must take into consideration. The first is that self-determination is a recognized principle in international law. It has been since Wood-row Wilson proclaimed it in 1916, in 1919 and subsequently again, in those days when our own peace delegation went to Versailles from South Africa to speak to those very people who were champions of the right of self-determination of nations. Subsequently the UN, in its character, also accepted the principle of “self-determination for all people”. We endorse that. We endorse the right to self-determination for all nations. In South African politics, and with the use of words, it has however become necessary for people to state clearly what they understand this to mean.

I believe that the official Opposition also believes in self-determination. They themselves use the word “self-determination”. However, they believe in self-determination even in an integrated society, even with mixed schools, mixed residential areas and mixed politics. They believe in integration. But they still speak of self-determination. The party to which I belong, and also the NP, I take it, does not accept that kind of interpretation of the concept of “self-determination”. Self-determination is a nation’s claim, its right, to its own decision-making. It includes its endeavour to maintain a government of its own, a territorial jurisdiction of geographic sphere of jurisdiction of its own. It even means endeavouring to remain a nation within its own State context.

Now we know that in practice this is very difficult. In the South African situation it is just as difficult. However, this does not deprive a nation—and for that purpose, the Afrikaner nation, or the generally defined White community—of the right of aspiring to see how close it can come to achieving self-determination within its own living space, and also as far as political control is concerned. Self-determination without spacial ordering of some kind or another is in my opinion an illusion.

I wish to refer to a Flemish authority who stated this concept as follows, and I quote—

I think that many of us would agree with this. The same writer, referring to the situation in Cyprus, said—

I have quoted this by way of illustration of the principle of self-determination. Senator Curtis of the USA stated it as follows …

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Waterberg does not have much time, but I should like to ask him what plan he has for the Coloureds?

We shall still come to that. If there is no time for it this afternoon, I hope there will be an opportunity to deal with this matter later on. [Interjections.] There will … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I am in the process of making a speech. [Interjections.] I am making my speech, and if … [Interjections.]

I challenge you to tell us about it now. [Interjections.]

We shall get round to it. If we do not discuss it this afternoon, I can, if the opportunity presents it-self, discuss it when the Vote of the hon. the Prime Minister is being discussed. [Interjections.] I can even do it when the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs comes up for discussion. [Interjections.]

Order!

We do not even know yet what the policy of the NP is in regard to the Coloureds. [Interjections.]

Hon. members of the NP must still make known to us their own policy in regard to the Coloureds. Now they are asking us to state our policy. [Interjections.]

Order!

The American Senator stated it as follows—

I wish to make a further statement. The stage has now been reached in South Africa in which nations and population groups desire effective political power. To try to withhold it from them, is not only unfair, but also untenable. All of us realize that.

The allegation that the conservative Afrikaners, and also the CP, are advocating a policy of domination and suppression, is downright nonsense. After all, hon. members opposite are very keen now to associate me with the HNP. Last week a questioner in Rustenburg asked where the CP stood, and whether we adhered to the policy of 1948, of 1966 or that of 1977. I replied to him briefly as follows: In 1948 the struggle was waged under the slogan of “apartheid”. But it was not spelled out at the time what would happen with the political aspirations of the Brown and Black people up to the independence of the Black people. In 1966 it had not yet been visualized that the self-governing Black States would become independent, and as far as the Coloureds were concerned there was at that time still no finalized policy. In the 1977 proposal we took the principle of separate development still further, as far as parliamentary institutions of their own for the Coloureds and the Indians, alongside the House of Assembly for the Whites. I went on to say that we had in that way made progress along the road of separate development. In those proposals there were certain questions which still had to be dealt with, and the hon. Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, and even the hon. the Prime Minister, implied that those proposals were not a culminating point, but a point of departure. But what were they leading up to? That is the question. [Interjections.] Are hon. members arguing about this now? Surely it is true. [Interjections.]

The national consciousness of the Whites refuses to relinguish separate political control, and that is the point over which there is concern. The political coalescence of Whites, Coloureds, Indians and urban Blacks in one political structure is not only unacceptable; it is certain death to self-determination. It was in fact on that point that questions arose. The Government and many other people talk about joint decision-making. When the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs used this expression, I told him that it was a loaded concept, for what did one understand joint decision-making to mean, and how did one structure it? Should one do it in a body where a decision was reached by a majority of votes? Although everyone is agreed that there are no problems with joint decision-making, when there is a difference of opinion or a conflict of interests, the question arises who is in the majority and who is going to take the final decision? This is a very important matter which has to be clarified. I am mentioning this because there are those who are constantly asking us to spell things out, but I think that they should also spell it out if that is the central point of the policy.

Take for example the concept of co-responsibility. We all accepted it, and it is stated in the explanation of the 1977 proposals. What does it mean, though? [Interjections.]

Self-determination is non-negotiable, is it not? [Interjections.]

The hon. the Deputy Minister is right, but what content did he give to self-determination? The PFP also believe in self-determination, but in the way they interpret it, it is negotiable. Their self-determination includes integration, but that is not included in the view of the hon. the Deputy Minister nor in my view of self-determination. Take for example the concept of co-responsibility. It is an accepted concept, but what does it mean in concrete reality?

You have dropped it.

In my humble opinion the hon. member for Turffontein is a little too loquacious for a person who only recently joined the NP. [Interjections.] However, I can tell him that as far as my political views are concerned, I did not undergo the same change he underwent.

I admitted it though.

He is going to change again.

However, I am not going to quarrel with the member, because I am in a friendly mood.

When we talk about the national consciousness of the Whites, who refuse to relinquish their own political control over themselves, there are certain things in regard to which one should also have clarity. I have appreciation for the fact that the hon. the Prime Minister has accepted peace and reconciliation between Whites and Coloureds as his lifelong task. In so far as this means goodwill and good neighbourliness, I am in complete agreement with him. However, the concept of reconciliation as well as the word conciliation, has a history in our politics dating back to the beginning of this century. If one speaks of conciliatiation, of reconciliation between Whites and Coloureds, and rejects the other groups and says that we want nothing to do with them, but that we want a reconciliation between Whites and Coloureds, then I ask: What do we mean by it? General Louis Botha adopted a policy of conciliation with the purpose of bringing about reconciliation between Afrikaans-and English-speaking people. However, he took the policy so far that Dr. Malan had to say at Stellenbosch in 1911: “Teenswoordig word ons nie gevra om ons identiteit prys te gee nie; ons word slegs gebid om die vernietiging daarvan nie teen te staan nie.” That was the reaction of a person who saw through the policy of conciliation and saw it in a danger to the survival of Afrikanerdom in South Africa.

Die Transvaler of last Friday quoted the hon. the Prime Minister as having allegedly said that he wished to dedicate his life to better relations between White and Coloured Afrikaners. I wish to assume that the hon. the Prime Minister was not correctly quoted. However, if he was correctly quoted, I want to say that this will certainly not go down well with the Afrikaner community.

The Coloureds are after all Brown Afrikaners.

No, who said they were?

Surely they are members of the Dutch Reformed Church?

Since approximately 1730—hon. members can look up the history as recorded by Prof. D. J. Kotzé of Stellenbosch—the name “Afrikaner” was a name which was given to the White, Dutch-Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa. They were the Afrikaners. Over the years we have spoken about Afrikaner nationalism. Can one now include Coloured people in Afrikaner nationalism?

Let me set you straight. I cannot recall having used those words. In fact, I do not think it was in my notes. I did in fact refer to South Africans, and this I have repeatedly stated in Parliament. It will not help the hon. member to gossip about this as he is doing now.

I am grateful to the hon. the Prime Minister for his explanation, and I accept it. Consequently I shall not take the argument any further. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the leader of the CP has tried this afternoon to project an image of his party as being a moderate, respectable party which is going to fight clean.

Before dealing with the hon. leader’s speech, however, I want to come back to what was said by the hon. member for Pietersburg and to test the image of respectability which is being projected on the basis of the speech he made last night. This hon. member quoted very dramatically from a book written by the hon. the Minister of National Education. However, he omitted to tell us that the article from which he was quoting had been written as far back as April 1972. [Interjections.] Surely the hon. member knows that the NP’s policy with regard to the Coloured people has changed since 1972 and surely he knows that this has been approved by the congresses and subsequently by the electorate as well in an election. Why does the hon. member not also quote from an article in the same book which was written in 1980 and in which the hon. Dr. Viljoen accepts the new direction in clear and lucid terms and throws in his full weight behind it? Why does the hon. member not quote from an article in Handhaaf of 1979 in which the phrase “afsonderlik, maar gesamentlik” is used? [Interjections.] This is the definition of clean fighting which we get from that side of the House. Surely it would be the easiest thing in the world for me to quote what the hon. the leader of the CP said about sport earlier in his career. I have a whole stack of cuttings on the subject available to me. Surely it would be the easiest thing in the world to quote what happened in the field of sport during the three years that the hon. member served in the Cabinet and to testify that he was silent about it, but went along with the policy anyway. But such arguments will get us nowhere in this country with its really serious problems.

What lies behind this method, however? The intention is to denigrate people. We accept this and we shall expose the hon. members by showing that their attack is based on denigrating people. The hon. member for Lichtenburg, who is sitting there smiling, helped to choose the members of the President’s Council. He was there. But the night we met in his constituency, he attacked them individually and he attacked the President’s Council as being a leftist liberal body. This is the style and these are the methods of clean fighting that we may expect. The hon. the leader of the CP referred to conservatism. I now wish to quote a passage from Dr. Viljoen’s book which they should take to heart, a passage from the 1980 article which they now fail to mention. It says—

Mr. Speaker, may I ask a question?

No, I do not wish to reply to a question. The hon. the leader of the CP said that they stood for good relations between the population groups and for freedom with justice. We gladly accept that. In his statement of policy he speaks about citizenship in South Africa. I want to ask him: In terms of his view of the Coloured people, are they going to remain citizens of South Africa, yes or no?

Of course!

His answer is in the affirmative. I want to ask the hon. member, in the second place: Does he still recognize, as he did in the programme of action in the general election, that there are common interests after a division of power has been brought about between Whites, Asians and Coloureds? Does he accept that even after this division of power has been brought about, there still remains an area of common interests? I do not know whether I should conclude that he believes that there will not be such an area. I submit that there will be. Then I want to put this question to the hon. the leader of the CP for his consideration, while he does not wish to reply. How can he expect that there can be freedom with justice for the Coloured people if the Coloured people are merely consulted on matters of common interest and if they are not given a joint say with regard to those matters of common interest in a meaningful way, which does not destroy the self-determination of the respective groups? Without involvement in decision-making concerning matters of common interest there can be no justice as long as they remain citizens of the Republic of South Africa. Therefore the inevitable consequence—if the hon. the leader of the CP is sincere about justice, and I accept his sincerity—of the course he wishes to follow, in refusing to accept a joint say and joint decision-making about matters of common interest, is that he must say that he is in favour of giving the Coloured people a territory of their own which can become a State of their own. He will also have to tell us how justice is to be achieved without this logical consequence.

I listened to the hon. leader with great disappointment, because we had expected clear and lucid statements of policy. We had expected him, having been freed—in the words of the hon. member for Meyerton—of the fetters that bound him in the NP, to give a clear exposition of his philosophy and policy in respect of the most important political questions. However, what did we get? In this House today, and over the past few weeks, we got the same hesitancy and dualism that we have become so accustomed to on the part of the hon. member, the same hesitancy which characterized his choice between the NP and the HNP at the time, the same hesitancy concerning details of policy which made his career within the NP so stormy and the same tendency to an overcautious choice of words which leaves little room for criticism of what is in fact said. However, there is the same sting in the very things he omits to say. The hon. the leader of the CP has also been devoting a lot of attention in his speeches since leaving the NP to the things we must guard against, to the things we must say “no” to, but we have heard little or nothing from him concerning the realities and the limitations on South Africa’s ability to implement textbook theories in practice. One can still forgive the AET theorists who are so passionately embracing the hon. the leader of the CP at the moment for pursuing unattainable textbook theories, no matter how wonderful it would be if they could work in practice. However, a person with three years’ experience, a Cabinet member, a person who for so long was involved every week in the struggle to reconcile theory and practice, is doing his country a disservice when he misuses soothing ideology for the sake of political gain. This is what we are now getting from the CP. This is the politics of emotion, telling the people what they would like to hear rather than trying to lead the people constructively to realistic politics. Our circumstances are too serious for any more woolly talk, and we shall demand of the CP that it express itself clearly. I want to tell the hon. leader that he was about as clear as the hon. member for Langlaagte today. [Interjections.] That was more or less the degree of clarity we got from him this afternoon.

You also voted for Connie.

I did vote for Connie, but I did not vote for Dr. Treurnicht. I want to put the CP in the dock today about a number of matters. My charge is that the CP is trying to mislead the electorate in a disgraceful way. [Interjections.] The leaders of that party are doing it in two ways, firstly by presenting themselves as martyrs who have been driven from the NP. The hon. the leader of that party said this again recently at Rustenburg. In the second place, they are trying to project an image of the NP which suggests that the Government has decided to relinquish White self-determination or at least to make it rather meaningless. I say that in this process, they are violating the truth, and the NP will not tolerate that.

Let us test these misrepresentations of the facts which the CP is trying to create. Let us begin by asking: Were the hon. members of the CP driven out …

Definitely! [Interjections.]

… or were we faced with a planned strategy aimed at hijacking the Transvaal NP or at forming a new party in a way that would hurt the NP as much as possible? [Interjections.] Let us begin with 22 February. On that day, the hon. the Prime Minister issued a Press statement to clarify a point concerning which the hon. the leader of the CP had sought clarification. The hon. the leader of the CP and the hon. member for Lichtenburg were not satisfied with that statement. If they had desired to preserve the unity of the NP, what should they have done then? How did they handle this dispute and how did the NP handle it? There were various alternatives which the hon. the leader of the CP could have followed after Monday, 22 February. He could have raised it in the Cabinet on the Tuesday, because there was an opportunity to do so. He did not do that. He could have gone to see the hon. the Prime Minister, because he was the leader of the NP in the Transvaal. He wanted to precipitate a crisis in that party because he disagreed with the hon. the Prime Minister. I want to ask him whether he made any attempt to see the hon. the Prime Minister. No, he did not. He could have called together the Transvaal executive committee or the key committee, three vicechairmen, and said: I have a serious problem; I could precipitate a crisis in the party, because I cannot go along with what the Prime Minister says.

Oh, come on.

He did not call the three of us together. He did not consult the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs, who had saved him in more than one crisis and had preserved party unity.

Ask him.

He will take part in the debate, and then he can say whether the hon. leader’s attitude was …

Do not talk about attitudes.

… to avoid a crisis, or whether the hon. leader himself chose that Wednesday to use the caucus as a forum and to throw down the gauntlet; in this the hon. leader was quickly and wholeheartedly supported by the hon. members for Rissik and Meyerton.

Yes.

Yes, I have taken up a standpoint.

They confirm it. [Interjections.]

There were ways and means of avoiding an open confrontation and of finding a formula, but these were not used. No, the caucus was chosen. What did the NP do after a decision had been taken in the caucus? It said: Let us give the men a week to come round. The head committee also said: Let us give them time to come round and let us try to change their minds. In the spirit of that decision, I invited the hon. the leader of the CP to have a talk with me and the two other vice-chairmen. I also said that we should discuss his position. However, he said he was not interested in any further talks. A final example: The hon. the leader of the CP had an opportunity at least to consult us as fellow members of the executive committee when he received a request—I think it had been signed in his office—for a meeting of the head committee, but where did the executive committee of the Transvaal learn that such a request had been received? On the radio! We had not even been informed.

Surely this does not sound like a situation where people have been driven out; it seems much more likely that someone judged that the time for confrontation had finally arrived, the time for that confrontation which the hon. members behind him had so long been preparing and which I and others on this side had so long been trying to prevent. This does not give the impression of people who were trying to keep the NP together; it is much more like a planned action aimed at hijacking the Transvaal NP through surprise action.

We firmly reject the charge that they have been driven out, and we accuse the CP of trying to create a false impression about this among the voters. They must not confuse healthy discipline with being driven out. After all, the hon. leader himself acted against Dr. Connie Mulder and I supported him in doing so. He also said today that they were a disciplined party. Are we to accept, without taking disciplinary action, the refusal of some members to accept the right of their national leader to interpret policy?

And to change it?

That policy has not been changed; there is much we could say about that.

Secondly—this is just what I am coming to now—I accuse the CP of projecting a false image of the NP, an image of the NP as having become an integration party which is unfaithful to its principles and which is deviating from its principles of 1977. The first distortion I want to correct is the insinuation which the hon. leader repeated here this afternoon that the NP wishes to involve the Blacks outside their national States in one dispensation along with Whites, Coloureds and Asians.

Ask Albert Nothnagel.

The hon. member for Sea Point should also listen to this, because I am answering his questions at the same time. The fact is that the NP draws a distinction between constitutional formulas for the various Black nations and constitutional formulas for the Brown people and the Asians.

Then ask Piet Koornhof.

The NP does this for very good reasons. There are fundamental differences between the Black nations on the one hand and the Coloured people and the Asians on the other. I want to mention a few of these. Every Black nation has a constitutional history of its own, involving self-government in its own territory. Every Black nation has a traditional geographic heartland which is almost exclusively its own. Every Black nation has a nationalism of its own, which finds expression in pride in its own language, culture and identity. The circumstances of the Coloured people and the Asians, on the other hand, are totally different, while there are also fundamental differences between them. However, both groups—Coloured people and Asians—have been sharing the same territory with the Whites since they came into being or since they arrived in South Africa. Neither has a history of self-government within a constitutional frame-work of its own in a territory of its own in South Africa.

That is quite true.

Although the Coloured people are clearly a distinguishable popu lation group with a character and culture of their own … [Interjections.] I said “population group”. Although the Coloured people are clearly a distinguishable population group with a character and a culture of their own, but also with deep-seated differences among themselves, they speak the same languages as the Whites and in many cases they share the same religion and belong to the same religious denominations as the Whites.

That is correct.

Surely these deep-seated and fundamental differences between the Black nations on the one hand and the Coloured people and Asians on the other necessitate—so the NP believes—a different pattern of constitutional development aimed at achieving different objectives. I do not wish to elaborate on this, because hon. members know our policy on the Black nations.

Just tell us about the Indians in the Free State.

As far as the Black nations are concerned, as hon. members know, the course of their constitutional development is from a limited form of self-government to full self-government, independence and sovereignty. Nations attain independence and sovereign States come into being, as had already happened in four cases. The problem of millions of members of a particular Black nation living not within their own national State, but in the RSA, is recognized. This is part of reality, and we see it as a problem of very great magnitude, but in this regard, too, our standpoint is clear. We cannot cut nations in two, and the ethnic relationship is the remains of cardinal importance.

What they want does not matter.

For this reason, the Black man living outside his national State is being granted the right to self-determination at the local level, but at the higher levels of government we are trying to create a dispensation—and we realize that it will still require a great deal of work on our part to make it really meaningful—in which he can realize his aspirations as the higher level via the political institutions and channels of the nation to which he belongs. However, that is not the end of our constitutional vision for the Black nations. We also stand for confederation, and until recently those members also stood for confederation, a confederation in which there can be consultation about common interests, without any loss of sovereignty.

We believe in it.

The hon. member for Lichtenburg says they believe in it. I am glad he says so, but I want to tell him that I have read every report about every speech made by the hon. leader of the CP, and except for his recognition of economic inter-dependence and the need for consultation and co-ordination concerning the Coloured people, there has not been the same emphasis on common interests as there is in the twelve-point plan.

No.

I am glad he admits that. In other words, he had deviated … [Interjections.] … from the emphasis of the twelve-point plan. [Interjections.] They no longer go along with the explicit recognition of common interests which was contained in the programme of action in 1981. They are trying to delude the electorate into believing that they can give everyone so much self-determination that there will no longer be any need for co-operation about matters of common interest. That is the dream they are trying to sell to the electorate, a dream which is unattainable in the real world. We shall expose them as far as that is concerned.

The electorate will decide for itself.

Finally, I want to say something else about the Black nations. It does not form part of the Government’s thinking, philosophy or vision of the future that the so-called urban Blacks should be included in a common dispensation with Whites, Coloureds and Asians. Those who allege this are being malicious and have absolutely no grounds for doing so.

Let us also ask what the position is in respect of the Coloured people and the Asians. When we examine this, it becomes quite obvious that the new CP is being malicious in its attempts to suggest that the NP and especially the hon. the Prime Minister, are being unfaithful to NP principles. After all, we know that the policy in this connection was clarified as far back as 1977. In essence, it meant that the NP accepted two objectives: On the one hand, recognition of the principle of the right to self-determination with regard to its own affairs for the White, Coloured and Asian groups respectively; and on the other hand, it involved the recognition of the need for co-operation about matters of common interest by means of consultation and co-responsibility.

Without powersharing.

It has been and is the declared intention of the NP to pursue both these objectives and to reconcile them in a meaningful way. In fact, the objectives were repeated in the 1981 manifesto, which was signed by the hon. the leader of the CP. In the manifesto, strong emphasis was placed on self-determination, separate schools and communities where this was at all possible, the acceptance of multi-nationalism, vertical differentiation and division of power, separation of power.

Yes.

The NP continues to do so.

No. That is the whole point.

The CP the same. However, let us examine point 4 which was signed by the hon. the leader of the CP. There, too, it refers to—

That is correct.

Surely co-responsibility was defined as far back as 1978 by the previous hon. Prime Minister as joint decision-making and a joint say. [Interjections.] Do the hon. members want me to quote it? [Interjections.]

Is that power-sharing?

Of course it contains elements of power-sharing. [Interjections.]

Please repeat that.

Order!

There are. Let me illustrate it. May I ask: Does the CP still support the 1977 plan?

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

No, my time has almost expired. [Interjections.] The hon. member for Rissik says they still support the 1977 plan. In terms of that plan legislation concerning a matter of common interest would be initiated in all three Parliaments by a Council of Cabinets under the chairmanship of the State President elected by a mixed electoral college. So there would be a mixed electorate college and a mixed Council of Cabinets.

Now you are in trouble.

That forms part of the 1977 plan. That legislation would come before all three Parliaments. Now the question is … [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I hope you will grant me injury time.

Order!

If that legislation has been passed by all three Parliaments and has been approved and signed by the State President, I want to ask: Who has made that law? Surely it has been made by all three Parliaments together, and surely that law will be binding upon the entire public in respect of whom it was made. Is making a law not an exercise of power?

Now you are getting yourself into trouble with your remarks. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. member for Rissik and the hon. member for Waterkloof must contain themselves.

Now he is awake.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps we should give him a chance while he is awake. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. member for Turffontein allowed to say that an hon. member is mad? [Interjections.]

Daan is definitely going mad.

Order!

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Minister of Law and Order allowed to say that an hon. member is going mad? [Interjections.]

Order! What did the hon. the Minister mean by that? [Interjections.]

Sir, you ask me what I meant by that. If you will only give me the opportunity, I want to say that in a humorous sense it is true. However, I shall gladly withdraw it if it is not correct.

Yes, the hon. the Minister must withdraw it.

I withdraw it, Sir.

The crucial question which we must discuss if we want to conduct a constructive debate is not, as is wrongly being suggested for the sake of political gain, who is most concerned about White rights or who is most anxious to promote the interests of the Whites. I reject every direct or indirect reproach levelled at the NP to the effect that it is acting in a lukewarm or incautious manner with regard to the vested rights and the right of self-determination of its own people. I reject this as unfair and unfounded.

The crucial question which we should debate is not whether we want to protect White interests, but how we can protect White interests while at the same time protecting the interests of all other nations as well.

It cannot be done by means of power-sharing.

The NP is clear in its own mind about this.

Power-sharing can only bring friction.

Now the hon. members of the CP must listen carefully. It is not in the interests of the Whites to try to bring about a subordinate or inferior constitutional dispensation for the Coloured people. No more is it in the interests of the Whites to allow a situation to continue in which more than 3 million people are living in South Africa as citizens of this country without any meaningful political rights. Nor is it to be reconciled with the NP’s endeavour to achieve justice to advocate a veiled form of perpetual domination over others. If the hon. member for Rissik agrees with such a thing he must say that he is in favour of a homeland for the Coloured people.

We shall talk about that later. [Interjections.]

Daan, if you advocate that, you are advocating HNP policy.

Because this is so, the NP has been making a consistent attempt since 1977 to give a meaningful content to the concept of “co-responsibility”, in a way which will not cause White self-determination to be undermined. [Time expired.]

Mr. Speaker, on an occasion such as this one cannot help but feel that one is the interval in a very good show on the radio, when the advertisements are being put on. [Interjections.] Such being the case, people look upon the advertisements as a necessary evil. Nevertheless, they do help to pay the various expenses of television and radio. I would suggest, however, that in the debate, as it has progressed so far, the only person who is quite happy about it or who derives any pleasure from it anyway, is the hon. the Minister of Finance, because he does not have to worry too much about anybody arguing with his budget. [Interjections.]

I must warn the hon. the Minister, however, that I propose to say a few words about his budget, just to give him an indication that we know what the debate should be all about.

The tradition generally is that hon. members in the Opposition benches should find nothing good whatsoever to say about the budget. Personally I find this a rather unfortunate tradition because I believe that in any budget there must be some good. In any case, I believe that if it is purely traditional to oppose something one has no credibility in one’s arguments because people automatically assume that one is opposing a thing because it is the tradition to do so. As far as I am concerned, I propose to give an honest appraisal, as far as possible, of certain points I have come across in this budget.

Generally speaking I do not believe it can be said that this is a bad budget. I also do not believe that it can be said to be a good budget. It is, however, I believe, a very ingenious budget. The build-up and presentation was an adroit exercise in public relations and in pre-budget taxing, which, no doubt, has made the life of the hon. the Minister of Finance very much easier and has also allowed him to create the illusion that the man in the street was not seriously affected. In fact, this is not so.

As has been said by other hon. members before me in this debate, the budget must be seen in the context of the pre-budget taxes. If one takes them all into account as well, this quite obviously is a fairly stiff budget. If one tries, however, to analyse the situation honestly, one finds that the tax has been spread right across the whole spectrum, and rich and poor alike are affected. There are some people who feel that that is unfair, but there is no doubt about it that this budget covers a wide spectrum because obviously GST applies to everybody and so does import duty. As far as I can see, the increased tax has been spread over a very wide field.

The hon. member for Amanzimtoti referred to it as a first-aid budget, and I am inclined to agree with him in his thinking because basically it is the dollar/rand exchange rate and the gold price that have caused the hon. the Minister of Finance certain problems, and he has to fill a gap. I believe that the budget that he has prepared has, in fact, filled that gap, and I think he has used a very adequate measure of first aid with which to do it. I also believe, however, that the hon. the Minister is fairly sure in his own mind that we have almost bottomed out on the gold situation, and that possibly there will be a turnaround in the dollar/rand valuation. If he is right in his estimate, he does not have to be too drastic in building up heavy reserves to accommodate any serious further downturn in the economy. Also, if he is right and if the price of gold goes up and the dollar/rand exchange rate improves, he will of course be in a lovely position to start off his next budget on the upgrade.

There are certain things which, I believe, must be mentioned. In so far as the pensioners are concerned, it appears to be tradition—and it is one of those traditions that I do not support—that they do not get the increase in their pensions until October. I am sorry, but I believe that this is a little unfair because quite a number of these pensioners will doubtless be deceased by that time and therefore would not have enjoyed the benefits of the increase. Others who do eventually get the benefit, will have half of the increase eroded as a consequence of inflation, and I think that this is rather unfortunate. In view of the fact that more and more people are living longer as a result of healthy living conditions and better medical attention, I should like to know just when the Government is going to get around to putting a contributory social pension scheme into operation. Such a scheme has been discussed for some time but it has not yet been introduced. We in these benches have also talked about it for years.

As far as local authorities are concerned, I am pleased to see that the hon. the Minister has increased the amount of assistance to them. With the amount now standing at R43,6 million, together with other assistance in respect of fire services, ambulance services etc. this is extremely meaningful relief, and I am sure that many local authorities who are getting this relief, are grateful for it. It is hoped, however, that the hon. the Minister will not feel that this is the end of the story and will continue giving additional relief as and when he can. However, I do hope too that it will not be considered that because the Government is giving assistance to local authorities, they have to undermine and/or diminish the autonomy of local authorities. One could not help but get the feeling that there was a suggestion in that direction as a result of a letter sent to local authorities virtually instructing them not to go above a certain percentage in rates increases.

Talking of local authorities, I have always felt that national politics should not enter into the field of local government. What is happening in the City Council of Johannesburg today more than ever convinces me that it is an unfortunate development to have politics in local authorities. It is quite obvious from the breakdown in the seats in the City Council of Johannesburg, with the PFP, the independants and the NP each getting a number of seats, that the people of Johannesburg, are interested in a form of power-sharing. “Power-sharing” is an unusual word to use in the House today. [Interjections.] From what I can gather it is possibly just a new concept.

Healthy power-sharing.

Yes, healthy power-sharing. However, it does seem to me that a little power-sharing is obviously indicated in so far as the City Council of Johannesburg is concerned, especially if there is a breakdown of wards. No party got a clear, overall majority in the city council. Therefore, I find myself a little puzzled at the PFP’s refusing to involve themselves in any form of power-sharing. This to me seems odd, because if people cannot get involved in power-sharing, even among the White communities in a local authority context, how on earth are they going to get involved in the even more complex issues that will be involved in provincial and central government? How can they involve themselves in power-sharing in that direction?

I was rather saddened to find that the PFP could not involve themselves in power-sharing and I was saddened primarily for two reasons.

The first reason is that the people of Johannesburg obviously have mixed feelings on this. They are not all liberally mined, not all nationally minded and not all independent ratepayer minded. They want a little bit of power-sharing, but the PFP do not appear to want to give the public in Johannesburg what they want. The NRP, with its sole official representative, has tried to be co-operative and assist them in their power-sharing, but they do not want that.

The other reason as I say, is that if the Progs cannot get involved in power-sharing with Whites, I am darn sure they will never be able to succeed in doing so with other race groups, unless of course their concept of power-sharing is “sharing providing they are the boss”.

I was a little intrigued by the peculiar proposals made by the hon. the Leader of the Opposition—I am sorry he is not present in the House at the moment—to resolve the problem. He made two rather extraordinary proposals in view of his position. The first is that members who wish to join the coalition management committee, may leave the PFP caucus and become independent councillors, and the other is that the PFP caucus will be dissolved. I have never heard of a political party talking that way if one is fighting on political terms. It is a new concept altogether and a most extraordinary thing. I believe that power-sharing would be much more fruitful than the obstructive opposition which appears to be the other alternative.

What about power-sharing in Natal?

That was merely an aside on local government because I am dealing primarily with the budget.

I am pleased to see that the hon. the Minister has taken note of the housing problem and has made certain concessions in respect of developers who are going in for housing development. The 2% which is being allowed for depreciation on housing—that is the present position as far as industrial development is concerned—is useful. The 10% deduction on the total cost of the housing units which are being built for rent, is a very useful concession. I do not think sufficient emphasis has been placed on this and sufficient notice taken of it, because it can be an enormously valuable concession for an on-going developer. However, there are certain faults in the proposal that has been put forward as far as it goes because, although I fully concur with and accept the principle underlying it that, in the event of the developer selling them off he loses the benefit of that concession, I cannot see that it is reasonable to keep on in perpetuity, because this is in fact what is proposed here. I should like to suggest that there should be a period of time during which the benefit could be amortized, for example, 1% per year, 1% every two years or whatever the figure may be. There should, however, be a time limit so that at some time in the dim and distant future a person will not have to repay a benefit that he had. Secondly, there is the question of the disposal of the total project. I accept unequivocally the question of individual flat sales because that might present problems, but when it comes to the question of a company disposing of it to another company, or where an individual who is a developer disposes of it as a rentable proposition, it will still remain a rentable proposition. Therefore I really cannot see why under those circumstances it should be necessary to insist that they will have to repay the benefit that they have had.

In so far as company tax is concerned, I think this is perhaps the most unfortunate aspect in this budget. I say this because I think the smaller companies are the ones who are going to be rather adversely affected in a period of high-cost money, and the smaller companies are the ones that create the job opportunities. They create a great number of job opportunities. Incidentally, they can only do that if they are growing and they can only grow if they put their profits back into growth. If they are putting their profits into tax and not back into growth, then I think we might well be cutting back on job opportunities. So, as I say, I think this is perhaps one of the less fortunate aspects of this particular budget.

Just to touch upon the purely political and not to get involved in the argument of the two major contestants in this great drama that has been unfolding here today, all I can say on behalf of hon. members in these benches is that we believe that some form of power-sharing has got to be found in this country. We are not people who believe in the melting-pot concept. It has never worked anywhere else and it will never work in this country. The melting-pot concept, as hon. members know, is basically to put everybody together on a “one man, one vote” basis, to call it a day and to hope that it works out. Even in that great democracy, the USA, it has not worked and they have great problems there. Moreover, in that country it is a question of ten to one in favour of the Whites while in this country more than the reverse position obtains. Therefore we do not believe in that concept. However, we do believe that it is essential that whatever the differences are among the various parties represented in this hon. House, in the very, very near future, we must find a way around our problems. A great deal of money is being provided for in the present budget for defence. In fact the amount appropriated for defence has increased by R1 billion over the past two or three years. No matter how much money we spend, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force will never resolve our problems. The problems must be resolved here. The security forces can buy us time, but if we waste that time additional time is going to be awfully expensive, not only in money, but possibly in blood, sweat and tears. I rather suspect that we cannot afford to waste too much time on the sort of drama that we have seen unfolding here today.

With these few words I wish to say that, as it is traditional, I assume that we shall oppose the budget but, as far as I personally am concerned, I can see a great deal of merit in certain aspects of it.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is appropriate to congratulate the hon. member for Umbilo on his rather valiant attempt to make a financial speech in this financial debate. However, since the tone of the debate has moved rather heavily elsewhere, I shall not follow him in regard to that aspect because he stands in rather splendid isolation except possibly for his aside in regard to power-sharing on the Johannesburg City Council. In this respect I agree generally with the remarks he made but I should jut like to say that I think that the White electorate should take note of the fact that the PFP has expressed a willingness to share power with people like Nelson Mandela and Dr. Ntatho Motlana whereas it will not share power with fellow Whites. I think that this is some sort of a comment on their kind of power-sharing in itself. I also agree with the hon. member for Umbilo in respect of his remarks on the melting-pot theory which is antiquated even in the United States.

*Mr. Speaker, South Africa is a complex country which is faced with an extremely complex challenge. The challenge confronting all of us is to find a constitutional dispensation which both Whites and people of colour can accept. I want to say that it is almost a classic dilemma, an insoluble problem. However, if there is a party which can solve this classic dilemma, which stands a chance of solving this classic dilemma, it is the NP. I am not saying that it will succeed, because it does not depend on it alone; it also depends on the Coloureds, the Asians and the Blacks, and their acceptance of a reasonable approach to the constitutional question. However, I repeat that if there is a party capable of solving this thorny problem it is the NP, because for years its approach has been to adopt the principle of separateness on the one hand, but also of equivalence on the other, of separateness, but also of development, of self-determination for every nation, but as regards the Coloureds, the Asians and the Whites, also an approach of participation and consultation, in other words co-responsibility, or healthy powersharing. It does not matter what one calls it; what is important is the content of the basic approach.

The NRP and the PFP cannot offer a solution to this problem, because their approach lacks the assurance of White self-determination and the preservation of White identity. They cannot guarantee it. Because of its flagrant disregard for the claim of people of colour to equivalence, the HNP cannot guarantee it either. I also suspect that just like the HNP, and for the same reason, the CP cannot guarantee it either, although I do not know that for a fact. This is the big disappointment of this afternoon’s debate, because the paths of the CP and the NP separated due to alleged power-sharing and mixed government with people of colour. This debate is, therefore, the first opportunity that party had to spell out their policy with regard to the Coloureds. Instead, the hon. leader of that party stood up here and made a policy statement in broad terms with which everyone in this House could agree in broad terms, even the PFP, and in any case the NRP and, of course, the NP. It was a general expression of platitudes lacking any political content. This is a tremendous shortcoming here. That party contended that there was now a tremendous difference in principle between the NP and themselves, and that that principle has to do with powersharing and, I contend, with the word “power-sharing” and not so much with the basic approach or the meaning of that word. They issued a pamphlet in which they stressed this. It reads as follows—

Now I ask: Does each govern itself in a vacuum, or what? In separate compartments without any form of consultation? It goes on—

Surely it must be spelled out, and then they attempt to spell it out—

They go on to say—

I ask the party where they get that from. To the best of my knowledge the President’s Council still has to report on this aspect, that report has to be submitted to the Cabinet, the Cabinet must take a decision on it, this House has to take a decision on it, the NP has to submit that Cabinet decision to its congresses, which have to decide on it, and then, possibly, there must in addition still be a referendum or referendums about it. They also say—

I ask again: Where do they get that from? Surely the President’s Council has not said anything about it yet. In the statement issued by the hon. the Prime Minister, the statement which the CP would not accept on 24 February—he put it very clearly. He did not say that there would be a single managerial or decision-making body at that level; he said—

This is precisely the same approach as in 1977. Then the new party comes along and says in its information pamphlet—

Once again I ask: Where does the party get that from? Nowhere in the information pamphlets of the NP is it stated that the council of cabinets would not be appointed by the State President; not a word was said about who was going to do it. Nor was it ever said that it would only meet on an ad hoc basis, nor that it would be consultative. Indeed, at the first opportunity after the NP congresses had accepted this approach in 1977, the then Prime Minister, Mr. Vorster, took the opportunity of spelling out his policy to the people, and not at all like the hon. leader of the CP did it today. He has really passed up a golden opportunity to state his policy. What did Mr. Vorster say at that time? The then Prime Minister said—

That is how Mr. Vorster put it. If the approach of the NP today amounts to a mixed government, it was also a question of mixed government on that basis in 1977. The hon. member for Rissik said here this afternoon that they stood by the 1977 proposals. Therefore, if they had wanted to object, they should have done so then, because otherwise they did not understand the implications. The issue here is not the existence or otherwise of the principle of power-sharing. For that party the issue is a mere word, and this is what I find so peculiar, because whenever one tries to give substance to the concept, we have interjections from that side to the effect that one cannot do this or that with power-sharing.

The hon. leader of the CP said this afternoon that his party and the PFP attached completely different meanings to the concept of self-determination. That is of course the case. I agree with him entirely. However, if he can accept that the PFP talks about self-determination in a completely different idiom to that of the NP, why then can he not accept that the PFP thinks in a different idiom to this party about power-sharing, because this party …

You and Wynand do not talk in the same idiom.

Of course!

I think that in the main we do talk in the same idiom. Every individual has his own style, of course, but what is at issue here is the principle. We are dealing here with the meaning of the word. The meaning of the word “power-sharing” is still the old meaning of the basic approach of 1977, namely self-determination for each group over its own affairs, consultation and a joint say over matters of common interest, in other words, co-responsibility, or one can call it healthy powersharing, as opposed to the unhealthy powersharing of the NRP and the unhealthy power-sharing of the PFP. [Interjections.] In the debate on 1 March this year the hon. the Leader of the Opposition said that his view of power-sharing and ours were poles apart. The hon. member for Amanzimtoti also stood up and said that his party’s view of power-sharing was poles apart from that of our party and the PFP. He said that their party was the only party which had a policy of power-sharing at all.

We therefore disagree about the meaning of the word. I cannot therefore understand how the hon. the leader of the CP has now all of a sudden become so married to a particular word without considering its meaning. He is not married to self-determination. In any event, he is not married to the Prog idea of self-determination. How is it, then, that all of a sudden he is married to the Prog idea of power-sharing, as if there is all of a sudden only one form of power-sharing and that is PFP power-sharing? I just wish to quote what that hon. member said in this House in 1978. On 1 February 1978 the current leader of the CP said the following (Hansard, col. 254)—

Then the hon. member went on to say—

If it was right for the Blacks and appreciated by them then, I cannot see what is so wrong with our substituting a term if it may be more widely appreciated by the people of colour and contribute towards finding a constitutional solution for the country.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin I just want to know whether we have a quorum. [Interjections.] It seems to me we have! [Interjections.] This looks like the Feathermarket Hall. The hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs will know what I am speaking about.

Now that you are speaking, we may not have a quorum for long.

In the first place, I wish to convey my sincere thanks to the governing party for their thoughtfulness in arranging matters in their party so that the hon. member for Water-berg is now sitting here next to me. I had many problems with him when he was sitting opposite. When hon. members on the NP side gave the impression that they were deviating in what they said I immediately expressed my concern about the purity of the NP’s ideological standpoint by asking him to explain. Many a time I asked: “What does Andries say?” At that time, unfortunately, he was unable to reply to me and merely smiled broadly, mumbled or said nothing. Now, however, he is sitting next to me and I have the opportunity to put questions to him, where necessary, to find out what the situation is on the other side of the House.

The hon. the Prime Minister said that what had taken place was not a split in the NP or in Afrikanerdom. He said that it was merely a flaking-off. That is the term the hon. the Prime Minister used. You must not, therefore, take it amiss of me, Mr. Speaker, when I also use the word “flaking-off’. This afternoon, however, it was very clear from the speech by the hon. the leader of the CP and that of the leader of the NP in Transvaal that what we had here was not merely a flaking-off from the NP. It is not merely a case of there being 16 hon. flakes on this side of the House and a whole lot of flakes on the other side who have not yet broken away. No, Sir, this debate concerns a fundamental division in the ranks of the NP and of Afrikanerdom in South Africa. We shall come back to this later to consider what factors have a bearing on this. I think this is important. The hon. the Prime Minister said that it was not a case of matters of principle, but one of an irresponsible, arrogant and unpatriotic flaking-off certain members of the party, and of words or concepts, not basic principles. I think the hon. the Prime Minister was quite wrong when he said that. It does indeed concern fundamental differences in principle that have now arisen in the ranks of the NP.

I think we must examine those differences, but before we do so, there is another matter I just want to raise. When, in the course of his speech this afternoon, the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs addressed the members of the CP, he advanced statements, arguments and standpoints which the Opposition have been putting to the NP Government for the past 30 years.

Never!

He levelled the same warnings and said the same things that we have been saying to members on the Government side for a long time.

You are not interested in White self-determination.

And the things that the hon. members of the CP said to the hon. members on the Government side, the standpoints which the hon. the leader of the CP put to the Government today, are precisely what the NP has been saying to the Opposition for 30 years. I am sure that if one goes through Hansard one will find that at the time the same standpoints were adopted by the various groups in this House.

One of the complaints made on the Government side was that the CP was racist and very conservative. The phenomenon of conservatism among the electorate of South Africa, chiefly among the Afrikaans-speaking section, the phenomenon of racist points of view and the phenomenon of race prejudice is, however, the product of 50 years, half a century, of racist indoctrination …

You are speaking absolute nonsense.

… deliberately implemented by the NP Government for party-political gain. For five decades and longer the NP has been creating race prejudices in the thinking, in the minds of the White voters of South Africa. It has then exploited those race prejudices.

You are working yourself up terribly, old chap!

The NP exploited those race prejudices in order to obtain and retain political power in South Africa. [Interjections.] Now the NP has realized that it has been playing a dangerous game over the years. Now it is tentatively trying to get away from that, and is now accusing hon. members of the CP and their followers—people who are the product of the efforts of the NP—of racism, race prejudice and so on. This is really an interesting situation that has now developed here due to the split in the NP. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member a question?

No, I do not have the time to answer the questions of the hon. member for Innesdal now. It is only for the past few days that the hon. member for Innesdal has become a Prog. In any event, it is not more than a few months ago. [Interjections.] He has not been a Prog all along. He used to be just as conservative as hon. members of the CP. [Interjections.] 15 years ago, when he and I sat together in the Transvaal Provincial Council and spoke about the removal of discrimination and all those things, the hon. member for Innesdal spoke just like the hon. the leader of the CP.

No, I agree with the hon. member that the slogan of the NP has always been: “It is nice to be Nat.”

Yes, it is nice to be Nat!

That is true, but the hon. member for Pretoria Central and the hon. member for Innesdal will now discover that it is also nice to be Prog. [Interjections.] All they have to do now is to say it. Why do they not say it? Come on, let us say it together. Let us all say together: “It is nice to be Prog.” [Interjections.]

The speeches by the hon. the leader of the CP and the hon. the leader of the NP in Transvaal were really very interesting. I really listened with the greatest interest to what those two hon. members said here.

Very learned.

Yes, very learned. That is true. There were such high-flown speeches, speeches larded with intricacies, elevated language etc. Mr. Speaker, I want to know what has become of the simple “boeretaal” of South African politics, that language which we stupid fellows used to be able to understand. Since Wimpie De Klerk and others began creating their new words, we find that every day new political words are used, new political words which simply make matters more vague and confused. In any event, in among all these learned speeches, there were at least a few things that were worthy of attention.

As far as I am concerned there are two broad policies that are being discussed, in regard to which there is conflict or confrontation between hon. members of the NP and hon. members of the CP who have taken part in the debate thus far. The first concept about which there is a difference of opinion is the concept of the self-determination of the Whites. There has been lengthy argumentation, a lengthy debate was conducted about this, but by the end of it, it was difficult even to determine exactly where each of the two sides stood. If I had to say now that hon. members of the CP contend that they champion the self-determination of the Whites and that that means that the Whites must have their own power, their own power-base, which must in no way be shared with other race groups, and that accordingly there may be no sharing of power in any form in South Africa, then that is more or less a correct summary of what has been said here. They are opposed to a single Parliament and they are champions of the separate development of the various race groups. I think it was the hon. member for Pietersburg who spoke about the consistent development of the idea of vertical differentiation.

Yes, that is correct.

Very well, that is how hon. members of the CP put it. In other words, they foresee no possibility of power being shared among the various race groups in South Africa on any basis whatsoever, with regard to any matter.

On the other hand, the Government says that it, too, advocates the self-determination of the White group, but only up to a certain point. The hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs said that the NP believed in the division of power and that it would divide power to the extent that it was able to do so. Beyond that point, where they could no longer divide power, they would leave the ball in the court of the President’s Council. Of course, the hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs himself concedes that he cannot tell us what will happen beyond that.

When are you going to say something about the policy of the PFP?

No, we are still coming to that. [Interjections.]

The second matter which has been disputed is the question of power structures and, of course, the question of geographic areas. In one of the documents issued by the CP, reference is made to the spatial independence of the various population groups.

“Ordering”, man, not “independence”.

Well, it is necessary that we put specific questions to both sides of the House in this debate. The hon. the Minister of Environment Affairs said to the CP: “Spell it out and say exactly what you mean by the standpoints you put forward.” The official Opposition now wishes to say to both of the other sides of the House: Please spell out precisely what you mean by the terminology you use. [Interjections.] When reference is made to “geographic areas of their own for each group” we should like to know what exactly is meant thereby. When the words “geographic areas of their own for Coloureds and Indians” is used, does this refer to the widely distributed, peppercorn group areas in South Africa?

To whom are you speaking now?

I am speaking to both the NP and the CP, but chiefly to hon. members of the CP. When they speak about geographic areas of their own for each group, do they refer to the group areas as such which will comprise the geographic areas of the Indians and the Coloureds? Or is there talk of the creation of homelands, of “stans” for these groups? Will there be a Colouredstan, an Indianstan and a Pakistan? What is meant by “geographic areas”? [Interjections.] I believe it is very important that it be spelt out by the NP and the CP precisely what is meant by the creation of geographic areas of their own for each group. What is meant by the words “power structures of their own for each group”? Hon. members on the other side, the NP, can advance the excuse that the President’s Council has not yet presented its report, because until that happens they cannot furnish an answer. However, proposals of hon. members of the CP are not before the President’s Council and therefore they are indeed able to furnish answers at this stage.

Ask them!

When one speaks about “self-determination” and “vertical differentiation”, the question arises as to what power structure is going to decide on what powers for each race group.

We first divide …

This Parliament governs approximately 87% of South Africa, where the other race groups also live and have their interests. Is this Parliament, in terms of the policy of the CP, never going to be representative of any of the other race groups? Will this Parliament, therefore, alone decide what the rights of all the other groups that live and work in so-called White South Africa are going to be, without ever having any representation in this Parliament? I put the same question to the other side of the House, to the NP, as well. Is this Parliament going to have the sole right to decide on the entire so-called White South Africa? Are the other population groups never going to have the right to participate in those decisions? I should now like to put a question to the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs. A day or so before the problems in the NP caucus arose, this hon. Minister advanced the following standpoint at an NP information conference at Swellendam. He said—

I say hurrah! This is quite right and we agree with the hon. the Minister. He then went on to say—

May I read that again? [Interjections.]—

I just wish to put this simple question to the hon. the Minister. These other living beings living and working and running around in South Africa, those that we call Blacks, does that apply to them too? Are they, too, people who live in this country? All I want to ask is: Do you regard those Black people, too, as people living in this country and whose interests are in the country?

Surely you know what our policy is.

Does the NP regard them, too, as people who live in the country and whose interests are here? [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister does not want to answer my question. If the hon. the Minister answers “no”, then we cannot carry on with the discussion. However, if he says that the NP does indeed regard the Black people as people who live in our country and have their interests here, I want to know how the hon. the Minister can justify including the Coloureds and Indians in his concept of healthy power-sharing while excluding the Black man?

I have already explained that to you carefully.

No, the hon. the Minister has not explained it carefully. There are many aspects which have not yet been explained carefully. The NP has not yet explained how power is to be shared on a healthy basis with regard, for example, to finance, taxation, defence of the country, foreign affairs, the Railways, the Post Office, manpower and so on. Are all groups to have a fair share in the decisionmaking with regard to these matters?

However, the most important point is this: What about the Black group? By the end of the century, 30 million permanently established Black people are going to be living in so-called White South Africa.

If you had wanted to be involved, you should have served on the President’s Council.

Are those people not simply going to be deprived of their citizenship and decision-making rights?

You forfeited your right to put such questions because you did not want to take part in the President’s Council.

That is an old argument, and that is not what the debate is about now. We should very much like to have answers from the NP and the CP. South Africa wants the answers, because the country wants to know exactly where the two sides stand. It seems to me that there is a hesitancy on the part of both the NP and the CP to furnish specific answers to the specific questions we put to them.

The hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs said that we on this side of the House did not perceive the realities in South Africa and that we worked with theories and were unable to reconcile theory with practice. We have exactly the same complaint about the NP. The NP does not perceive the realities of South Africa, and the policy of the NP is not worked out with realities in mind. The policies of the NP are not aimed at resolving the problems that stem from the realities.

You have no understanding of the realities of nationalism.

I have already done so, but I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs once again to explain the NP’s policy to us against the background of the following realities: By the year 2000, 30 million Blacks are going to be permanently resident in White South Africa. Does he still maintain that those people are to be deprived of their South African citizenship and that they will have no share in the political structures of the country in which they live and have their interests? Does he still maintain that in the light of the fact that four out of every five matriculants in the country are going to be Black, that four out of every five skilled workers are going to be Black, that 19 out of every 20 of all other workers are going to be Black and that the Black group will have a bigger income than the White group and will pay more tax than the White group? Does he still maintain that the Black group are not going to be South African citizens and will not have a share in South African political institutions? I want to put it to the Government and the CP that healthy power-sharing with a joint say, co-responsibility and joint decision-making is the right policy, but it can only be implemented successfully if it is based on equal citizenship with equal rights of citizenship, equal opportunities and no discrimination on the grounds of colour against any of the inhabitants of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Bryanston was very insistent about the fact that policy should be spelt out and that the standpoint of the parties on certain matters should be made clear. He also spoke about a reluctance which he said existed, in the sense that the parties were not very clear in spelling out their policies. However, I want to allege that it is in fact the PFP which is reluctant to spell out to the electorate its policy as it will be implemented in practice. I can guarantee to the hon. member that our policy will be clearly spelt out in the course of this session and we expect them to spell out their policy clearly as well.

In the course of this debate, attempts have been made from all possible quarters, especially by the official Opposition, to dismiss this budget as an inferior product of an even more inferior national administration. As usual, Hansard will be heavily burdened with all the quotations that have been made of people who, in the view of the various speakers, had hit the nail on the head and knew what they were talking about. However, I think we should leave this to the people who know. We should leave the question of inflation, liquidity and all those things to those people who are really qualified to discuss them, to the officials, under the leadership of the hon. the Minister, and we should leave the decisions to them, decisions which, because of the complexity of the problem, are not always easy and are sometimes politically unpopular, but which have to be taken with conviction and sometimes with a touch of audacity in the interests of a country and its people. I think we are fortunate in having the services of such experts to take such decisions for us. The man in the street should not refrain from voicing sound and constructive criticism, with regard to this budget as well. But the man in the street should not consider himself entitled to hurl accusations of bad financial policy and administration at a Government without taking into consideration the totality of the problem of the day, and motivated only by his own personal worries. Such people are playing a very dangerous game, because they create doubt in people’s minds and they create a milieu in which a Government cannot operate with confidence.

However, let us come to the realities as we experience them. Surely it is a fact that the price of petrol is high. Surely it is equally true that it costs a fortune to put a child through university. The fact that a housewife has to count the lamb chops before cooking them today is enough to make one despair. The fact that a pumpkin, which used to be given away for nothing in the days of our childhood, has become an expensive article today is something we could not have believed. However, let us be honest. Are the people in this country really struggling? And in saying this, I am not forgetting that there are people who would like to sleep on an inner-spring mattress, but who cannot afford it. I am not forgetting either that there are children who have to be satisfied with coffee and bread when they come home in the afternoon. I am not forgetting the pensioners who cannot make ends meet, even if they count their cents a thousand times. I am not forgetting about unemployment, especially in certain areas of our country. However, it is surely not fair to present these and other examples as being the norm. Walk down the streets of Cape Town and tell me, do you read sorrow and poverty on people’s faces? Look at those who wait in their tens of thousands for trains to Soweto; those people are laughing and chatting.

Just look at the White, Brown and Black school-children who come pouring out of school buildings all over the country. Look at the tens of thousands of people who regularly attend soccer matches at sport stadiums. Is a population really struggling if all the chain stores throughout the country are jam-packed? Surely the Black school-children who go to school in their thousands are not sickly and malnourished. The people who drive along the freeways at peak hours, sometimes one to a car, are they really struggling? I could go on for a long time in this vein. What I want to say is that we have much to be thankful for. When we ask ourselves why this is so and how it is possible that more people than just those of us who are present here today have blessings which they can count, then the answer is that in the first place, of course, it is the will of our Heavenly Father. However, could anyone in this House ever deny that it is also possible because the history and the circumstances of the past have cast the White man in the role of the leader and the initiator, and that prosperity and progress are the direct results of the leadership of the White people, while recognizing the share of every other population group in this success story? It is an indisputable fact that in this complex heterogeneous population which we have, there are people who, because of their different and distinctive qualities, have something which they want to treasure, develop and protect, call it identity, call it the right to self-determination or whatever you like. It causes people to say: Cherish your White heritage, my people.

However, it cuts both ways. Surely there are also people in this country who also have a right to live here and who are able to say: Cherish your Brown heritage, my people, or: Cherish your Black heritage, my people. The opinion-formers, the reporters and Government representatives who are outside this sphere of experience will not understand this, and we must not worry about that, but each of us who has to live with these truths every day will ignore them at his peril. When the NP and the Government endeavour to find a solution by means of which these legitimate aspirations of people may be satisfied, they cannot be blinkered in the process. Surely we cannot argue that because things were done in a certain way in 1910 or 1948 or even in 1980, we must take the same decisions and things must be the same today. Surely the Government cannot ignore the ominous signs of Russian expansionism which has become a reality. Surely we cannot forget that intercontinental projectiles have been trained on us. Surely we know that a radio signal and a television image have caused this earth to shrink into a much smaller planet. We also know that our enemies have proved that they have used the labour field as an excellent field for creating dissatisfaction, even to the extent of toppling Governments. Surely this is true. The Government must take into consideration the spirit of negativism which exists; what is more, it must take into consideration the spirit of people who do not want to be bound by any norms and who are not interested in social order and peace. The Government must take congnizance of the increasing numbers of agents who are seeking our downfall and who want to work outside the legal and recognized structures of authority to make it more difficult for the Government to govern. We could go on in this vein. The outside world refuses to understand when we tell them that we want to build up a strong Defence Force and to be self-sufficient, for the very purpose of creating the most favourable milieu in which an acceptable and politically viable socio-economic and constitutional plan can be worked out in the interests of everyone in this country, taking into account the heterogeneous truth which we cannot change and which we must not shrink from. Ultimately, our success in this will not depend on the amounts which we appropriate in our budgets in this Parliament. Surely the fact that five years ago, an amount of R1,2 billion was budgeted for education, while today, more than R3 billion is being budgeted, speaks volumes. Surely the development of a formidable Defence Force can be only partially responsible for success. Even if we managed to feed, clothe, house and employ every single soul in this country, our plans would still not succeed if our relations politics did not succeed, and then all our endeavours would be in vain.

It must succeed with our own people. The relations politics must succeed with the Brown people and the Black people. It must also succeed with our neighbours. Then we can win, then we can conquer the forces wishing to destroy order and prosperity, progress and security.

I am convinced that if the relations politics of the NP do not succeed with our own people, the people of colour, and with our neighbours, the only winners will be the leftists with their all-powerful alliance which extends over the entire globe. Surely the right-wing group cannot win, for they have no allies, or are the AWB, the HNP and the Kappiekommando strong allies? Surely more is at stake than winning one or more seats in Parliament; surely what is at stake is victory over communism.

What is the lesson we must learn from recent events? Firstly, these events were inevitable. Secondly, it is not only the Prime Minister, the NP and the country and its people that are being hurt in the process; it is democracy that is being hurt. There are people who rejoice in fact that this has happened. The ANC was gratified by this turn of events, for to them it meant that they were seeing a crack in a powerful instrument which was exposing their sinister activities. There are a few individuals, in this House as well, to whom this was a happy day. They said that it was the happiest day of their lives. We shall not begrudge them their shortlived joy.

I believe that when the message of the NP has once again been conveyed to the country, there will be a regrouping of forces, within this Parliament as well, to form a front which the arrow of communism will not be able to penetrate. There are people sitting on the other side of this House who should stop playing with words and who should have the courage of their conviction to join forces with the Government in order to do what we want to do.

Whom are you addressing? There are many different parties on this side of the House.

Then we shall be able to solve the problems which are wrestling with and the magnitude of which will never be understood by anyone outside.

Mr. Speaker, I hope the official Opposition will take note of the last appeal made by the hon. member for Rustenburg.

He was talking to you.

No, he was talking to the hon. member and his political associates.

I should like to address the hon. the Minister of Environmental Affairs and I shall begin by quoting to him a passage from one of the political thinkers of the NP, the editor in-chief of Die Vaderland, who wrote as follows on Monday, 22 March, 1982—

The following I am addressing, in his absence, more particularly to the hon. the Minister—

Read what he says about you.

The hon. member for Randburg says I should read what he says about us. I want to tell the hon. member that the editor of Die Vaderland is a Prog. [Interjections.] That is his little brother. The hon. member for Randburg is also a Prog. His family know that he is a Prog. and they call him one. [Interjections.] I should just like to say to the hon. Minister of Environmental Affairs that he is welcome to continue with his acrimonious remarks, and his hon. colleagues on that side are welcome to heap scorn … [Interjections.] … but after each speech like the one made by that hon. the Minister we get a thousand or more new members. [Interjections.]

The hon. the Minister also attempted to call the former State President, Mr. Vorster, as a witness and referred to part of what he had allegedly said, which ostensibly implied that there was power-sharing. After he had been expelled from the caucus … [Interjections.] … Mr. Vorster did indeed … [Interjections.] Incidentally, I should like to tell the NP that they will have to decide now whether they are in favour of power-sharing or not, because some of their members are extinguishing the fires of power-sharing in the constituencies. They go out there and say there is no power-sharing. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs is a great exponent of non-powersharing. [Interjections.] There was even a banner newspaper headline to the effect that there was “non-power-sharing” in the NP’s policy. [Interjections.]

It appears in the Prime Minister’s statement itself.

But what about certain colleagues of his? Yesterday, for example, the hon. member for Pretoria Central said by way of an interjection that we voted for power-sharing in 1977. [Interjections.]

We all voted for the same policy in 1977.

Mr. Speaker …

I am still a Nationalist, and you are not.

The hon. the Minister of Environmental Affairs also asked: If one has divided everything up, what does one do with what remains? If I have the time I shall come to the 1977 pamphlet of the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs in which he said what one does in regard to those matters. However, the hon. the Minister of Environmental Affairs said that one of the possible solutions was “baas-skap”, i.e. White domination. Last year, on 7 August 1981, while the hon. the Leader of the Opposition was replying to the debate on the motion of censure the hon. the Prime Minister expressed his standpoint on this matter. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was speaking, and I quote (col. 439)—

Then the hon. the Prime Minister replied—

In other words, and as far as the one option is concerned, with regard to a specific aspect, White domination is the equivalent of “baasskap”. However, this party has never used the word “baasskap”. The hon. the Minister—and I am very sorry about that—treated my leader very curtly. What he has probably forgotten, is that until my leader left them, he was one of the speakers who was most sought after by those very members on the opposite side and the hon. the Minister who were labelled as being slightly more to the left in the party. In the Fauresmith constituency, which that hon. the Minister left vacant when he became Administrator, my leader was the only Minister who was asked to hold two meetings there in order to lend assistance in that way. In this way they took him with them throughout the Transvaal, throughout the Free State—this is the hunger diet now—and throughout the Cape. [Interjections.] He was also in Piketberg during last year’s by-election.

I added the vitamins.

The hon. the leader of the NP in the Transvaal says that he added the vitamins himself. At the congress last year the hon. the Minister, the new leader of the NP in the Transvaal—as far as I am concerned the regularity of his election is questionable—said that the then leader of the NP in the Transvaal was the most maligned leader that the Transvaal NP had ever had … [Interjections.]

I felt sorry for him.

In the process of expressing thanks the senior deputy-chairman of the Transvaal NP said that the great success that the NP had achieved in the election in the Transvaal had been due to the leadership of Dr. Treurnicht.

We are waiting for the next election. [Interjections.]

I shall contend myself with that as regards the speech made by the hon. the Minister of Environmental Affairs.

He made a prediction about who the next Prime Minister of South Africa was going to be. He did not mention the name Botha or De Klerk in the process. He said that Andries was going to be the next Prime Minister of South Africa. [Interjections.] I should like to say to my former colleagues that they should stop this acrimony and scorn now. They cannot hurt us with it. My mother taught me: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me”.

Order! Did the hon. member use the word “filthy” (smerig)?

No, Sir, I used the word “acrimonious” (snedig).

Where are you going to make yourself eligible for election? In Soutpansberg?

Perhaps. I still have to consider it. I think I shall stand in my own constituency because the way people are flocking … [Interjections.]

It was also said that Dr. Connie Mulder’s election committee was sitting on this side behind my leader.

I was there.

I was not a member of Dr. Mulder’s election committee. I am not apologizing for it or anything else. No one knows better that I was not a member of that election committe than the hon. the Prime Minister himself and Dr. Connie Mulder. However, the founders of the Dr. Connie Mulder fund, for example, are sitting on the opposite side. The hon. member for Verwoerdburg is sitting there and the hon. member for Klerksdorp too. Those who nominated Dr. Connie Mulder are also sitting there.

What fund is this?

There are also friends of Dr. Connie Mulder sitting there.

I should like to ask the hon. the PrimeMinister where ex-minister Louwrens Muller is. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I should like to make it clear to hon. members that the CP’s flame is burning high in the Transvaal.

And in the Free State.

In the Free State the flames are already beginning to crackle.

We shall extinguish them.

In the Cape the grass is already smouldering nicely, and in Natal, too little flash fires are already breaking out everywhere. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Waterkloof, and other hon. members on both sides of the House, have dealt with the history of the troubles of the NP. I am not planning, however, to become involved in all that. There has been a lot of talk this afternoon about power-sharing. I believe it is worth remembering that the managing and sharing out of the finances of this country are as important as any other form of power-sharing.

A concept of time-sharing has come into being in recent years, and I am planning to share some of my time with the budget this afternoon. I actually want to walk about finance.

An hon. member who spoke earlier pointed out that one should not ignore the good aspects of a budget, if one could find them. There is one particular aspect of this budget which I should like to welcome. The recognition given to civil pensioners, and particularly to the plight of those who have been retired for 10 or 20 years, should be welcomed.

I believe that the greatest achievement of this budget is, however, the skill in stage management that has been displayed by the hon. the Minister of Finance. The main taxes paid directly by individuals in this country, namely personal income tax and general sales tax, have increased by 46% in one year, yet most newspapers were presuaded that the budget was “a mild one”.

On the contrary, this budget is going to hit the man in the street very hard indeed. He is going to have to pay, and pay dearly, for the economic and political mismanagement of South Africa by the NP Government.

It has been conceded by most commentators that the hon. the Minister had very little room in which to manoeuvre. This reminds me of a story that used to be read to me as a child, the story of Winnie the Pooh, in which a teddy-bear visited a rabbit. The rabbit asked him whether he would have tea and whether he would like honey or condensed milk on his bread. The teddy-bear was so excited, he said: “Both”. Then, not to appear greedy, he said: “But do not bother about the bread, please”. Winnie the Pooh proceeded to overeat, and as a result he got stuck in the door on his way out and had to go without meals for a week until he grew thin again.

Last year, in the pre-election mini-budget, we rightly accused the hon. the Minister of presenting a vote now, pay later budget. It was a budget overflowing with honey and condensed milk in the form of handouts and concessions but which was, nevertheless, lacking in sound financial management to ensure steady economic growth. Unfortunately, unlike Winnie the Pooh, when the hon. the Minister of Finance is over-indulgent it is the taxpayer, the pensioner, the unemployed and those millions living on or below the breadline who have to go without means. This budget is going to hit those people very hard.

Let us begin by looking at some of the massive tax increases. In the Part Appropriation debate last month the hon. the Minister increased general sales tax from 4% to 5%. During the course of that debate, following on a point made by the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central, I made the following remark (Hansard, 24 February 1982, col. 1608)—

Then I commented: “I see the hon. the Minister is shaking his head”, upon which the hon. the Minister of Finance said: “I do not understand your arithmetic”. Subsequently, when I elaborated on the point, the hon. the Minister said: “You would not pass Sub A on that”.

What are the facts? The estimates of revenue that have been distributed during this budget, show quite clearly that the total income that will accrue to the hon. the Minister from general sales tax will increase by R1 billion to R3,15 billion, an increase of 46,5% in one year. This is exactly what we pointed out in the part appropriation debate and in regard to which the hon. the Minister suggested that we had not done our arithmetic properly. In fact, during the past two years we have seen staggering increases in taxation. The average taxpayer is now paying 89,4% more in individual income tax and GST than he was paying just two years ago. Taxation in those two major areas has nearly doubled in two years. This drastic increase in the taxes extracted from the ordinary taxpayer is just one symptom of the gross mismanagement of the economy by this Nationalist Government.

All economies have their ups and downs, and we as a country cannot expect to be an exception, but we can expect that the Government will attempt to temper the adverse effects of cyclical movements in the economy, not exacerbate them. The latter is, however, exactly what this Government has done, and to prove my contention I want to list a number of examples.

Firstly, the dramatic increases in interest rates during the past year have been disruptive and painful for the economy to absorb. In his budget speech earlier this session, the hon. the Minister commented “that the sharp increase in South African interest rates during the past 18 months had occurred from a level in 1979 and most of 1980 that was artificially and abnormally low.”. He was quite correct, but what he should also have told us was why the Government deliberately and knowingly encouraged those artificialities and abnormalities in interest rates that distorted our economy. Why did the Government encourage and allow this to happen? It is no use, after the event, blaming the sharp rise on the fact that interest rates were abnormally low before. The trauma that we are now suffering would have been far less severe if the economy had been properly managed.

The second example is in regard to the money supply, and I refer to the broadly defined money supply, M2. In his budget speech in August last year, the hon. the Minister of Finance said (Hansard, 1981, col. 648)—

He also said—

What happened however? In the fourth quarter of 1981, less than two months after the hon. the Minister had uttered those words, the money supply was allowed to increase at an annual rate of 21%, which resulted in an increase of 25,1% in 1981 on top of the disastrous 27,4% of 1980.

It is sometimes said that the past two years have been abnormal and that in this regard one should not be too hard on the hon. the Minister, but what is his long-term record in regard to the money supply? From 1976 to 1981, five years during which he was the Minister of Finance, the real gross domestic product increased by 20,8%. However, over the same period the Government allowed the money supply to increase by 117,5%, i.e. nearly six times the rate of real growth. In terms of the hon. the Minister’s own analysis, can anyone be surprised that we have rampant inflation year after year …

That is like comparing apples and pears.

… or that this Government’s policies are the prime cause of inflation in this country?

You cannot compare a real rate with a nominal rate.

I would suggest the hon. the Minister missed out on the earlier arithmetic and he is reacting rather late to this one. [Interjections.]

Thirdly, I want now to deal with inflation. These inflationary monetary supply policies are and have been highly irresponsible. Inflation has brought misery and insecurity to millions of South Africans and it threatens to destroy the fabric of our society.

Apologists for the Government point to other countries and to so-called “imported inflation”. What are the facts? In the long run exchange rates reflect the success or otherwise which countries are experiencing in their fight against inflation. If one compares South Africa with some of our major trading partners, viz. the USA, West Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, we have fared rather badly as far as fighting inflation is concerned. Over the period from 1976 until March 1982 the rand has depreciated by about 20% on average against the currencies of those countries, a sure indicator of our failure to contain inflation.

When it comes to inflation, the Government has not only failed in terms of its monetary policy but it has also set the pace in respect of price rises. Administered prices and those of Government and semi-Government institutions have had widespread inflationary effects, and nobody will believe that the Government is seriously fighting inflation when time and again many of the biggest price increases are decided upon by the Government itself.

They have given up on inflation.

The fourth issue which I want to raise to illustrate the Government’s mismanagement, is productivity. A final example of the Government’s economic mismanagement is the effect which its policies have had on the supply of skilled labour. The shortage of skilled labour is a major restraint on economic growth in South Africa. This, together with the abysmal growth in productivity, has severely limited growth and contributed to inflation.

An appalling neglect of education and training over decades, restrictions on labour mobility and widespread reliance on migrant labour, have contributed substantially to our problems. An increase in productivity of only 1,7% in the five years up to 1980 was quite inadequate to meet our needs, and yet, even now, the Government is dragging its feet when it comes to implementing urgently required reforms in education and influx control.

Finally, if one needs any further evidence of failure in economic policy, one only need look at the increase in the real gross domestic product per capita. This measure tells us better than any other whether the man in the street is really better off than he was. What does one find? In the five years from 1976 to 1981, all years under the stewardship of this Government and this hon. Minister, the real gross domestic product per capita increased by 1,3%.

I venture to predict that by the end of this year this figure will be down to zero, or even lower. We expect, in relation to the population growth, relatively little economic growth this year, and that figure will decline. It is indeed an indictment of this Government’s economic and political mismanagement that after one of the biggest economic booms in our history, the average South African has to look forward to a situation in which he will be worse off than he was six years ago. And this is the situation after a boom!

Whether one looks at the past year or at a period of five years or more, the symptoms of economic mismanagement abound: Dramatic and disruptive rises in interest rates after being artificially suppressed for years; inflationary increases in the money supply; disastrous rates of inflation; rocketing administered prices; negligible increases in productivity; and the absence of any increase in the living standards of the average South African. The results of all this are that we have to bear massive tax increases and we can expect a decline in our gross domestic product per capita. Like Winnie the Pooh, the hon. the Minister has little room to manoeuvre because of a lack of self-discipline and discretion in the past.

If we have to tighten our belts, let us at least learn from the chronic mismanagement from which we are now suffering. Interest rates should be allowed to move freely so that they will remain market-related. The money supply must be kept under control and inflationary financing by Government avoided, unlike during the fourth quarter of last year. The Government must set an example by preventing administered prices from rising by more than the rate of inflation.

But, most of all, the Government should do all it can to increase the supply of skilled labour and to improve productivity. In this area our economy needs to be set free from bureaucratic and ideological restraints. Immobility of labour, the migrant labour system, the lack of freehold for urban Black, inadequate urban transport and apartheidrelated red tape all contribute to inefficiency and low productivity. We need to use all our resources optimally to increase our real growth rate. We dare not drag our feet on educational reform. Empty schools, halfempty teacher training colleges and unemployed teachers cannot be tolerated. Yet that is exactly what we have in South Africa because of our segregated structures. Thousands of bureaucrats tied down unproductively, administering apartheid laws and regulations, cannot be afforded any longer. Increased productivity will only come about when we use all our resources efficiently and when we remove the apartheid shackles that retard our development.

South Africa has enormous potential economically and otherwise, but it will never realize that potential unless this Government is prepared to adapt its economic priorities to the changing political circumstances of today.

I have pleasure in supporting the amendment of the hon. member for Yeoville.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cape Town Gardens quoted a long story here in which he levelled criticism at everything the hon. the Minister of Finance has done over the past six years. According to what I have read in financial journals from the PFP side and from this side of the House, everyone has said that in the circumstances this was a good budget.

Name one.

The Financial Mail said that in the circumstances it was a good budget. After all, the hon. member for Bryanston cannot say that the gold price is going to be in six months’ time. The hon. member for Yeoville cannot either.

Can you?

The price may be under $200 and it may be over $600. No one can predict what the financial situation is going to be. But in spite of these circumstances, the hon. the Minister of Finance has come up with an acceptable budget providing for salary increases of more than R800 million.

Is it a worse budget than yours?

It is just a tiny bit … But wait a moment …

That is an unfair question.

I shall refer to that tomorrow. I have another problem. The hon. member for Waterkloof says that we must refrain from political acrimony, but for me that is difficult. He says that we should refrain from acrimony, but immediately after that he contends that the hon. member for Randburg is a Prog. And yet he says he does not want acrimony. That is the greatest possible insult. Someone can tell me that I have a screw loose and that I am not normal. I can still take that, but if anyone were to say I was a Prog, I simply would not take it. I should like to reply to these points at greater length tomorrow.