Mr Speaker, yesterday the hon the Minister of Finance said that the hon members who had spoken in the debate were prophets of doom. On behalf of the Government the hon the Minister led us to believe that all was well with our economy and that the position was not nearly as bad as it appeared to be. Yesterday evening I said that I would produce evidence to prove that the opposite was true.

Who could be my best witnesses in this connection? To my mind the opinions of the businessmen of South Africa are the best indication as to whether things are going well or badly in South Africa. If the financial affairs and the economy of the country are not sound things cannot be going well in the country. In this connection I want to quote from Rapport of 27 May of this year. In this article it is stated quite clearly:

It is in actual fact a dream because South Africa is going downhill. The names of ten South African businessmen were mentioned in this report. I do not want to mention all of them but I do want to mention the name of Mr Kahn, managing director of SA Breweries, in this connection. This is a large company and this man must know what he is talking about. What did he say? He said:

And this is what they all say. I also want to mention the name of Mr Frans Davin, managing director of Old Mutual. Old Mutual is probably one of the largest and strongest companies in South Africa and knows what is going on. Mr Davin said:

In this regard I also want to mention the name of Mr Gordon Utan, the managing director of Kirsch Trading. [Tussenwerpsels.] When the noise abates I suppose I will be able to continue my speech. Mr Utan said:

One of our most prominent businessmen is telling us this.

What did Mr Chris Ball, managing director of Barclays Bank, the largest and strongest bank in South Africa say? He said:

That is what these businessmen said. Let us see what the Bureau for Economic research of the University of Stellenbosch had to say. I am quoting from their June 1984 issue. They said inter alia:

[Interjections.] As hon members pointed out yesterday, if the Bureau for Economic Research of the University of Stellenbosch paints such a sombre economic picture, how can one say that all is well with the economy in this country?

I also want to quote what Mr David Hugh Shaw, president of the Pretoria Chamber of Commerce said. He said:

The Government is not only levying additional taxes; it is also robbing the public of their money. After all, Prof Sampie Ter-blanche said there had to be a redistribution of income and wealth, but what is the Government doing? This is precisely what is happening.

Yesterday the hon the Minister of Finance also objected to certain matters. In this connection I want to quote a paragraph from the Ekonomiese Soeklig of Volkskas, which was published in June. I just want to draw the attention of the hon the Minister to the fact that all the matters referred to in this paragraph were mentioned in consequence of facts gleaned from the Reserve Bank report, statistics and figures of the department, and official documents. The paragraph reads as follows:

In December of last year it (personal savings) was 2,4% whereas it had previously been 25%. If this is not a drastic decline and empoverishment, I should like to know from hon members opposite what it is. I am continuing to quote:

It is true, company profits are declining. In the present Budget the hon the Minister of Finance budgeted for R690 million less in respect of company tax than for the previous year because the profits had declined so much.

What does Barclays Bank say? I am reading from a business letter of that bank. They give precisely the same figures as those appearing in official documents of the Department of Finance. I therefore want to ask the hon the Minister whether this official document is correct or whether it is a distortion? Is it perhaps a misrepresentation? Yesterday the hon the Minister said that these people were prophets of doom. But the figures appearing in the Barclays Bank business letter are exactly the same as the figures appearing in the official documents. I am quoting:

For that reason I am asking the hon the Minister whether these figures are a distortion and whether these people are prophets of doom.

I should now like to refer to the congress of the Handelsinstituut. I attended this year’s congress of the Handelsinstituut and the hon member for Waterkloof—I hope he is here—was the only member of the NP who attended that congress. I want to thank him personally for being there. Last year when the Handelsinstituut held its congress in Cape Town, a few of them came along and listened for about three quarters of an hour, but that evening a large number of them, including Ministers, were wining and dining at the function that was held. However, they are not interested in the businessmen as such. They run to the businessmen and they beg them for money, R1 000, R5 000, R10 000, R20 000 which the businessmen must pay, but they are not interested in the Afrikaner businessmen. They are not even interested in the Whites.

Mr Hennie Klerck delivered his presidential address there and when he was finished everyone in that hall accepted it unanimously; everyone applauded, including the hon member for Waterkloof. So did I. What did Mr Klerck say? He is virtually a Prog and I am the exact opposite. Mr Hennie Klerck is a Nationalist. But yesterday the hon the Minister of Finance said that the president was in the publicity business. Now I want to ask the hon the Minister: Is that a threat to mr Hennie Klerck that the Government is no longer going to give him work to do? [Interjections.] Oh yes! There we have it. It is a pity the man is not here today. Threats are made when a person belongs to the CP, or whatever, but they must just remember that the State gives them work to do. My day of reckoning will come. I am warning hon members opposite. What did Mr Hennie Klerck say? He said:

It is not only in this country; it is not only the businessmen; people from abroad no longer have any confidence in this Government’s handling of our country’s monetary affairs either.

I only have three minutes left and I now want to deal with the hon the Minister of Health and Welfare. According to his Hansard he said the following yesterday:

Dr Connie Mulder is not here to defend himself. [Interjections.]

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

Sir, I do not have enough time at my disposal to allow the hon member to ask me a question.

The hon the Minister was referring to the Information Affair, and what is its history? The then Prime Minister established a secret fund and Dr Connie Mulder, as Minister of Information, was responsible for seeing to it that the external onslaughts on South Africa were refuted and eliminated. That money had to be voted by Parliament, and where did it come from? From the Department of Defence.

That is not true.

If this hon Minister continues to make this kind of statement, it is necessary for us to go into the history of this matter. If one man is rebuked, everyone might just as well be rebuked.

Are you suggesting that he said that the previous Prime Minister told him to lie?

I have here the report of the Erasmus Commission, as well as a letter written by Gen Magnus Malan to Dr Eschel Rhoodie. This is what he wrote:

This was done to help South Africa abroad. Let us pursue this matter. On 3 November 1978 the hon the Prime Minister held a Press conference, and at that conference the following question was asked:

To this the hon the Prime Minister replied:

He was then asked:

The reply of the hon the Prime Minister was:

I have here the report of the Commission of Inquiry into Alleged Irregularities in the Former Department of Information with the reference RP 113/1978, printed by and available from the Government Printer, Pretoria. In this report it is stated clearly that all that money, the R64 million, was given by the Department of Defence between 1973 and 1978, and this is not a matter of belief, but a matter of fact.

In conclusion I want to say that because that money was spent at that stage to keep South Africa safe and sound, the hon the Minister must tell the entire story, particularly in view of the fact that the then Minister was under oath. He must not distort the story as is happening in the case of the pamphlet which is now being distributed. Let us not semi-distort things and misrepresent them; let us be honest.

Mr Speaker, I found it interesting to listen to the hon member for Sunnyside for what he was basically doing was to defend the fact that it had been admitted that Dr Mulder told a lie in this House. Not only was he defending it, but he was also defending it on the basis of a further lie. I do not want to spend too much time on this, but what are the facts in respect of the funds that were in the Defence Account? They were never budgeted for Defence purposes, but were budgeted for the Department of Information and placed on that Vote. They were removed from that Vote on the ground of the standpoint which the present hon Prime Minister adopted that they should not be on his Vote. His standpoint was not only vindicated by the then Prime Minister; it was also vindicated by the Erasmus Commission. What is relevant is the fact that Dr Mulder was the person who prided himself on being the person who had opened up avenues in Africa for Mr Vorster, the previous Prime Minister, and who prided himself on playing the game without any rules to open up avenues to the international world for South Africa. The point I want to make is that he found it necessary in his time to try to open up avenues in a hostile world for his father-land. But he has now, as a person who was compelled to leave public life in disgrace, described the greatest leader in Africa, the Prime Minister of South Africa, as a traitor because he went to state his country’s case in a hostile world.

What kind of leadership do we have in this country? We find that it was the hon member for Waterberg, as member of the National Party at the time, who expelled Dr Connie Mulder from the party. Now, however, he is seeking affiliation with him. But he does not have the courage to say that although he differs with the hon the Prime Minister politically, when the Prime Minister travels to other countries he does not do so on behalf of a political party, but on behalf of his fatherland. If we are no longer able to adhere to these codes, then we are lowering the public debate, as far as politics are concerned, to a level which we ought to be ashamed of.

There is one legal principle the members of the CP should not forget, and this also applies in regard to their clamour about a pamphlet. That principle is that only people with clean hands should take others to court. Sir, I shall say nothing further about this matter now.

Does the hon member for Sunnyside not realize that we are going through a prolonged depression? Is it not true that people’s incomes decline during times of economic recession? It seems to me the hon member wants South Africa to be the only country in which people should earn more and grow wealthier during a time of recession. The warning which emerges in this connection is that a country and its people that spend more in the long term than they earn, are destroying their country. I have never heard the hon member for Sunnyside pleading with the people of this country for increased productivity.

I have done so.

I said I had never heard him doing so. [Interjections.] We shall have to work our way out of inflation by means of increased productivity. For the hon member for Sunnyside, the main speaker on finance for his party, to come here and speak about the attendance of a congress and how people went there to attend social functions, is an even lower level of debate. I shall leave the hon member at that now.

The Third Reading debate on a Budget is always important, for on that occasion the session up to that stage is reviewed. Because it is virtually the last major debate of the session, it is also politically important. What is more, the times in which we are living make of this debate an even more important occasion than was previously the case.

It is such a pity that hon members on that side of the House, who have a special privilege others do not have, namely of being able to participate in the debate, could not display an awareness of the significance of the occasion. This is the last Budget debate in a constitutional and political dispensation in this House that is dominated by one population group only. There is not one hon member or party represented in this House that does not make it their object to get away from the domination of groups in this country, including the domination of Whites over Coloureds, Asiatics and Blacks. There is not one of us who maintains that that is not the essential issue in politics.

What I now want to say I am saying in all humility. Since Union and since South Africa became a republic in 1961, there has so far been only one political party that has succeeded in creating a formula in terms of which people could escape from domination. Only one party has succeeded in doing that, and that party is the NP.

The new Constitution guarantees domination.

I do not want to conduct a debate with that hon member now, but with the hon the Leader of the Opposition. He is far more responsible than many hon members sitting behind him are. We may not agree on the method, but more people in South Africa are participating in the government of this country under this Government than under any previous Government, and this is happening at administrative, executive and legislative level. I would be the last person to allege that this process has been completed, because it has not.

No political party in this House can, in its planning, undo the existence of institutions that were established to escape from domination. Instead, each of them will, in some way or other, have to incorporate the work that has been done constitutionally into whatever political solution they may offer.

I was so hopeful that we would have been able to use this debate, in view of its historic aspect, to at least have made an inventory of our guardianship thus far. I thought it would be possible to free ourselves from the futility of the kind of debating methods we have had from the opposite side on a major historical occasion such as this. So often in the past one speaker after another on the opposite side tried to create an image of our father-land as being that of an economically and militarily threatened country, as a country that was internationally isolated and which was sitting on a political powder-keg.

It is true that the debate during the past decade or longer has centred around South Africa as a threatened country. We hurled recriminations back and forth as to who was allegedly the cause of that, but the fact remains that that was what the debate centred around. It is also true that during the past decade or longer there was an onslaught on South Africa which increased in intensity. When we referred to it, we were frequently accused by opponents on the opposite side of this House of over-emphasizing the threat for the sake of political considerations.

The fact of the matter was, however, that that was the reality of the circumstances of the country. I want to advocate that, at the close of this era and the close of this debate, we assess this one-sided picture which is being painted of our country objectively and put it in its correct perspective. We must ask: What is the actual position of the South Africa of today? I have asked this question before, but I want to ask it again today: Do we as a country have no achievements we may be proud of? When I speak of “we as a country” I am choosing my words deliberately. That would better enable us to determine whether South Africa finds itself in a better position today than it did a decade or so ago in the economic, political, military or security sphere, and also in the international world.

We must ask ourselves whether we have made any progress in developing South Africa into a peaceful and progressive haven for all its people, and whether we have succeeded in developing South Africa into a stable and respected factor on the continent of Africa and in the international world. This is, after all, the touchstone, the criterion we have to apply to assess the past era.

What was the position a decade or two ago, and how did South Africa react to it? Did these onslaughts on our country, which no one disputes, cause South Africa to creep into its shell, and did they break South Africa’s will and ability? What resistance could we offer, and did we offer, and to what extent did we succeed, or fail, in warding off and exploiting the onslaughts on us to the benefit of the country?

I want to refer briefly to the spheres which are important. It remains a fact that over the past few decades tremendous economic pressure was exerted on South Africa, and that this was done for political reasons and frequently, too, on the ground of double standards against which South Africa was measured. Our memories are so short. In the sphere of imports, there were oil embargoes against the country which compelled us not only to buy at a premium but to spend more than R6,5 billion, which could not be justified on economic grounds, to help reduce our vulnerability in the energy sphere. Today there is not a country, dependent on the imports of liquid fuel, which is better off than South Africa in the sphere of energy. When do we ever say this to one another?

There were embargoes on automobile spares, as well as computer equipment which would supposedly be utilized for military purposes, in order to maintain an arms embargo against us by interpreting it more widely than the original intention.

In the sphere of exports South Africa’s products have been boycotted for the past few decades. It is a fact that extreme and radical elements throughout the world, in their attempt to isolate South Africa, have concentrated on reducing or cutting off the flow of foreign capital to South Africa. That was where the heaviest pressure was exerted on us. In spite of these boycotts South Africa has increasingly been able to succeed in supplementing its oil requirements through the normal channels from abroad at competitive prices, to such an extent that hon members have forgotten the crisis conditions under which we lived, when they conduct their debates as well.

We are selling our products, every conceivable kind, to almost every country in the world. This country, this hard-pressed country, has become, the larder that has to feed many countries in Africa besides its own people. This development occurred over a wide field, regardless of internal economic conditions brought about to a large extent by the oppressive drought. But do we ever hear about the extent to which the intervention of the Creator in agricultural conditions has contributed to our short-term economic and financial problems? Let us rather assess our country on the basis of the truth and the facts.

The inherently sound economy of our country which is being maintained and stimulated through the originality and through the financial control of the Government, has created confidence in businessmen, both at home and abroad, so much so that foreign businessmen who were subject to extreme pressure in their own countries, successfully resisted that pressure. I am therefore saying that it can be contended beyond any doubt that South Africa is stronger today in the economic sphere, in spite of the very tragic effect of the drought, economic pressure and the internal and external factors, than it was a decade ago. The best proof of this is that a hostile Africa of yesterday is turning to South Africa, economically and otherwise, in order to create stability in their own countries.

Are we better off in this sphere? Show me a country with comparable conditions which, in respect of investment possibilities and stability, is regarded more highly than this much-condemned South Africa. Of course there are many faults in South Africa, but there is so much we can also be proud of, proud that we are able to live in this father-land of ours.

In the military and security sphere we have passed through serious times, and we are still doing so today. However, our military objective, has never been one of aggression. It was and is simply the defence of our country’s integrity and its borders. It was not granted to us, however, to spend a minimum of money and manpower on this objective so that we could have more available for the greater welfare for our people. We experienced a physical onslaught on us, the nature and magnitude of which hon members cannot differ with one another about in this House. We had to extend national service and take up two years and sometimes more of the lifetime of our young people with such a service. In addition we had to develop an armaments industry, and we had to break through the isolation to acquire arms and technology, and the man whom hon members opposite label as a traitor is the man who took the lead in turning South Africa’s Defence Force into a national instrument and in helping to equip it so that it could defend the country. [Interjections.] In view of all these things, therefore, it is not for us to disparage the leaders of our country for the sake of petty political gain. [Interjections.]

Against this background it is easy to talk about escalating military conflict, about an arms build-up, about a Vietnam, a Middle East and a Lebanon. Without closing our eyes to such possibilities and leaving them completely out of the reckoning, and I want to emphasize this, we must also ask ourselves: Where do we stand today, and what has South Africa achieved?

In spite of increased pressure all the security forces are succeeding to an increasing extent in confining the frequency of incidents and the resulting loss of life to a minimum. International arms and technology embargoes resulted in an indigenous armaments industry which can compare and compete with the most modern in the world. South Africa, after only a few years of deliberate, international military isolation attempts, has a military capacity which is incomparable in Africa. In terms of our physical ability to defend ourselves, we have become a power factor to be reckoned with, and from that position of strength we have demonstrated our own goodwill towards neighbouring States around us by concluding non-aggression pacts and treaties of friendship with them. In this regard we are not moving towards an escalating conflict as in Lebanon and the Middle East. The opposite is true. In the military and security sphere South Africa excels in a world of uneasy peace, full of conflict and tension. This has enabled us to move outwards in every other sphere and to shake off the shackles of separation with which people wanted to bind us.

The last aspect I want to deal with is the internal political sphere. There is no party on the opposite side that has an acceptable alternative to the political problems of this country. [Interjections.] The hon the Leader of the Opposition will grant me that. All that he has is proposals he wishes to submit to a national convention. Until he receives a directive from a national convention, the status quo applies. Surely I am not wrong nor am I being insulting when I say that there is no acceptable alternative.

I want to say very little about the CP. They are burdened with obsolete concepts and views which do not take reality into account. No construction work on the future will be able to succeed with such an approach. I ask myself how it was possible for the party to which I belong to have lived with such a malignant growth in its political body. Instead of the CP using the past as a guide along the road into the future, they want to use the past to occlude the future. Their kind of thought processes belong in a natural history museum.

My friends in the NRP will understand the spirit in which I speak to them. They represent a disintegrating factor in politics, and I have some sound advice for them. This is not a reproach. I think the NRP should decide where it wants to lead its people while it still has people to lead. If it does not do that, any support it does have is going to disappear like mist in the morning sunlight. We are all in earnest about solving the problems of our country, and for that reason my remarks are not intended to be insulting or disparaging.

The only tangible alternative is that of the NP. There was a time when foreign forces that wanted to sow chaos on our country’s borders found links with discontented and dissatisfied people within our borders. There was a time when for many people there was no hope and no expectations. I ask: Is that still true? Is that still true to the same extent? I want to say that the forces that are striving to bring about chaos, are losing the struggle against those, among all the population groups in our fatherland, who are seeking peace, order and development.

Where do we in fact stand in the political scene? We are standing on the threshold of an era of political decision-making by means of institutionalized negotiation and bargaining. I am not assessing the quantum of this process. That is why I say we are standing on the threshold of such development. It means that the whole course has not yet been followed. It means that the constitutional and political history of our fatherland has not yet been finally written, but believe me, we all have the responsibility of helping to write it within what is attainable and achievable in terms of the realities of South Africa.

As I have said, we are standing on the threshold of an era of political decision-making. This is the result of years of intensive preparation during which the nature of the political process in the country changed drastically. Because it developed in an evolutionary and orderly way it has not been dramatically presented, it has not been sensational and we have not always succeeded in making a proper assessment of all that happened. The political process has changed drastically because effective dialogue and negotiation with all interest groups—in the business world, in the political, social, cultural and ecclesiastical sphere and therefore over the entire political and social spectrum—have helped to create a climate of goodwill and sincerity in our country. This has caused the inter-group relations among Whites, Coloureds and Asiatics to improve to such an extent that it was possible for us to establish constitutional structures on the highest level within which the democratic process was able to take its course with the participation of more people that just those who are sitting here. I ask once again: Is that not progress: is it not progress is one speaker after another on my side looks forward with enthusiasm to the future, and if one speaker after another on the opposite side, without accepting those models, says “We are going to try to make a success of them”? Surely we have made progress in this House as well, have we not? At least three parties are prepared to say: “We are going to try to make a success of it, even though we do not agree with it”.

Surely these are the facts in connection with the threats against South Africa, and its reaction to them. The picture sketched for us by the Opposition and others is surely not a true depiction of our country. South Africa has surely surpassed that; surely it has overcome that. Then let us ask ourselves candidly: Is the era we are entering, better or worse than the one we are concluding? We are concluding an era in which, in the economic sphere, we were a beleaguered country and we are entering a new era with the self-confidence of a country which, in this subcontinent, is the nucleus of economic and financial stability. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, as is customary, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning made a fascinating speech in which he raised quite a number of matters to which one could react at length. However, he will understand that my time is limited and that unfortunately I cannot go into all the points he raised.

He commenced by addressing a request to this House that we judge the value of the Third Reading debate correctly and that we restore the dignity of the debate. I hope that I can make a contribution in this regard, but I just want to point out that the dignity of the debate was dealt a considerable blow as a result of a political pamphlet which, in my opinion, has very little to do with the debate on the Budget. Any reading of that pamphlet makes it clear that we have here a piece of ignorant and untidy political fraud. All the hon the Minister should have done was to say that that was in fact the case and that he regretted it. However, it was somewhat of a spectacle to see a senior Minister with the status of the hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development struggling and floundering to make admissions sound like denials and denials sound like admissions. In my opinion, we so not need this kind of debate.

The second point the hon the Minister raised which I really believe deserves attention, is the whole question of the evaluation of alternative policy measures and how we are succeeding in dealing with the relations problem in South Africa. The hon the Minister made a few remarks about the position of the Opposition parties in this regard. I think that it is also the task of Opposition parties to assess the worth of the Government’s alternative and attempt in this regard and to see where we stand now. That is precisely what I shall be attempting to do during the course of my speech.

Before doing so, however, I do want to avail myself of this opportunity to welcome the hon the Prime Minister back from his recent travels overseas formally and officially. The hon the Prime Minister was so kind as to summon me and other political leaders in this House and give us an informal report on his tour. I think that this House would benefit if the hon the Minister were given the opportunity to inform this House a little about what we were told informally by the hon the Prime Minister and the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

How one should assess the whole matter is difficult to judge finally at this stage, of course. What one could say, however, in my opinion, is that the success of the tour lies in the fact that it took place. What happened subsequently was a bonus. The hon the Prime Minister could possibly give us more information about what happened subsequently and how he himself rates it.

There is only one matter I wish to raise to which I hope the hon the Prime Minister will give his attention, and that is the so-called offer he made to the five Western Powers. I must say in all honesty that I have looked at this offer from all angles and that I tried to ask myself in all honesty what it was worth. In terms of the contribution it could make, or could possibly have made, to a settlement in South West Africa, I must say in all honesty that it does not make sense to me. From that point of view, it does not make sense to me. I can understand that a political point was in fact made, but that it would have been able to make a real contribution to a settlement in South West Africa is something I must say in all honesty I cannot see. I would therefore appreciate it if the hon the Prime Minister or the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs could explain to us how they rate this offer.

†Mr Speaker, I would like now to return to the economic debate and to devote my attention to the hon the Minister of Finance. I want in particular to do what was said by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning namely to consider the policy of the Government and its effort to solve the South African domestic situation and to judge this effort from an economic point of view.

In respect I want to link up with a point the hon the Prime Minister made when he returned from his overseas trip. He said the West was disillusioned with Africa and that Africa was disillusioned with the West. The hon the Prime Minister also said that Africa was tired of handouts and so forth. The question is: Why is there this disillusionment? I am sure than one could consider a whole range of factors and reasons responsible for this situation. The Library of Parliament is also littered with books devoting attention precisely to this problem. I should like to refer to only one of these which I consider to be an excellent reference. It is written by a gentleman called Gerard Challiand entitled Revolution in the Third World: Myths and Prospects. In his book Challiand says that the greatest source of political instability in most of the post-colonial countries in Africa was not coups or tribalism or necessarily inexperience; it was the creation of massive State bureaucracies that consumed the wealth of those societies, overloaded their economies, destroyed their economic infrastructures and, in fact, eventually led to political instability. He showed that in many of those countries those bureaucracies eventually consumed more than 60% of the budgets of those countries. These elements then became a self-perpetuating elite in those societies. When I talk about a bureaucracy I am talking about the State machinery, about the Civil Service, if one want to call it that, that developed in those societies. Against that background I want to charge this Government of ours that it is making exactly the same mistakes that the West has made towards Africa. It is making the same mistake domestically and it is compounding the difficulties inside South Africa that many of the African Governments have made in the past.

In this last big debate, the Third Reading of the 1984 Budget, I want to make it my theme that this country, this economy in particular, literally cannot any longer afford to pay for the policies of this Government. Over 30 years we have developed a system of bureaucratic patronage and privilege which is costing us a fortune. Whatever development has taken place in South Africa, has taken place not because of the buraucracies we have created, but despite those bureaucracies. Increasingly we may have to endure this Government, but we are not going to be able to afford it.

Let me give some illustrations. Let us take South West Africa itself, the problem to which the hon the Prime Minister referred during his trip overseas. We tend to forget that only a few years ago Namibia/South West Africa has an annual real growth of between 10% and 12% a year. Obviously the drought and the drop in mineral prices internationally played a role in the downturn of the economic situation there, but one of the most important factors responsible for the economic decline in South West Africa/Namibia was political uncertainty, political uncertainty about the future. We can see it quite clearly reflected in the economy. Let us take two sectors. In agriculture from 1979 to 1982 the real growth declined from minus 4,1% to minus 9,4%. In mining it declined from minus 3,5% to minus 7%. Since 1979 there has been a steady decline. However, it is ironic that exactly when this economic decline started, the Government decided to transfer bureaucratic functions from Pretoria to the economy of South West Africa/Namibia. In 1980 we started the implementation of AG8, and AG8 is if it is anything the extension of bureaucracy in Namibia/South West Africa, so much so that the Africa Institute in its monthly bulletin made the following point:

So much so that the branch of the Department of Finance in Namibia made the following statement and report, and I quote from Hansard of 1983, column 10881:

How much is this?

When we tried to point this out to the Government at that time, they said that by arguing like this we were undermining the security of the people of South West Africa. We tried to say then, and we are trying to say it again today, that there is no way in which one undermines the security of a country better than to spend money which one does not have. There is no way of doing it more effectively than to spend it on something which is not going to work, and did not work there and is not going to work in South Africa.

Let us look at South Africa as well. We have heard many political justifications, again now from the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning about how wonderful the Government’s policy of creating self-governing national states has been. We have heard political reasons, ideological reasons and so on. Let us look at it briefly just from the perspective of the bureaucracies which we have created because in a sense it has been a massive experiment of bureacratic production. Has it paid off these self-governing national states? Let us consider the following facts: The GDP per capita, at 1970 prices, of the inhabitants of the self-governing national states increased from R40 in 1970 to R46 in 1980. This represents an average annual income of 1,3%. This is among the lowest in the world.

Real.

If the hon the Minister of Finance does not believe me, this comes from Simon Brand’s own magazine. I am therefore quoting from what the hon the Minister’s own department says.

But I say that is the real figure.

Yes, that is the real figure.

Furthermore, improvements in the standard of living of the national states during the past decade originated overwhelmingly from outside the states and not from inside. The income earned by migrating workers represented 72% of the total gross national income of the national states. The proportional share of the outside income is increasing in importance and not decreasing; in other words, those states are becoming more and more dependent. Between 1972 and 1980 the proportion of internal production of gross national income declined from 35% to 26%. So it is getting worse; it is not getting any better. The development aid from the South African Government and from the South Africa Parliament to the governments of national states comprises almost 77% of the total income of those governments. The amount which is paid directly to those national independent and non-independent homelands totals R1,6 billion per annum. The amount which is paid indirectly—I can give hon members all these figures—to the independent and non-independent homelands is R627 billion. The combined total is R2,2 billion this year. This constitutes 8,8% of the 1984-85 Budget—just under 9%. One must remember that figure because put dramatically, the South African Parliament and taxpayers paid R2,2 billion this year for a policy which has succeeded in improving the per capita GDP of the people of the self-governing states from R40 to R46 between 1970 and 1980. I repeat, an annual average of 1,3%. This is among the lowest in the world.—

Let us look at destitute people. “Destitute people” can be defined as people who have no jobs, no remittance income, no pension payment, no land and no cattle; in other words, no visible means of support. In 1960 they were 5%—250 000 people—but in 1980 they were 13%—1,43 million people—five times higher. Of course incomes have risen. I know that hon members will say that incomes have risen in those independent and national states. Sir, those incomes have risen for two reasons: Firstly because of the increase in general wages outside, wages which have gone back to the homelands and, secondly, because of the salaries we pay the bureaucracies we have created in those states. But if we look at those states themselves, we see that there has been a steady economic decline.

Let us by way of illustration look at one independent state, namely Transkei. Transkei has a President, 14 Cabinet Ministers, four Deputy Ministers and a National Assembly consisting of 109 members. Each Minister has a Department of State with a permanent Secretary and a permanent Under-Secretary. There are 44 127 officials in the Transkei Civil Service against a permanent population of 2,6 million. This gives us the ratio of one civil servant to 59 people. As regards salaries, the President gets R66 000 per year plus an allowance of R9 000 per annum; the Prime Minister, R47 000 plus an allowance of R7 000; a Cabinet Minister, R34 000 plus allowance of R6 000 and a Deputy Minister, R31 000 plus an allowance of R5 000. The cost of the executive of the Transkei for the 1984-85 Budget amounts to R833 000. To that must be added R1,3 million which is paid to members of Parliament. In addition to that a permanent Secretary gets R30 000 per year and an Under-Secretary R29 000. The total cost of the Public Service amounts to R226 580 000. Defence is excluded from this expenditure but this is not a very significant item. Mr Speaker, so we are paying R226,5 million for the bureaucratic elite of the Transkei. What for? So that we can show the rest of the world that a country is independent or a tribe is independent? Or do we want to show that a country is self-sufficient? What does it mean? What does it mean in terms of the real cost to South Africa? What does it mean in hard cash? 85% of the rural households in Transkei is earning an income lower than the conservatively calculated minimum subsistence level. In 1979 the poorest 20% of rural households earned only R242 per annum. This is 15% of the minimum subsistence level. A third of the rural population and a fifth of the urban population have had no training whatsoever. Infant mortality amounts to 130 per thousand births. This, is amongst the highest in Africa. The average distance to clinics in rural areas is 7 kilometers, while the nearest doctors are 13 kilometers away on average. Rural households spend an average of 3,5 hours per day fetching water, while the per capita use of water amounts to 10,8 litres per family as against the hygienic norm of between 20 to 50 litres. Food shortages are a general occurence. In essence only 28% of the total national income is generated by the local economy. The Transkeian Government says itself that one can hardly speak at present of a Transkei economy in any meaningful sense. More properly one must consider it a labour reserve. I am not blaming the South African Government for it, but what I am saying is that we are paying R226 million per year for a bureaucratic elite in the Transkei living off the non-existent fat of that country in order to administer an economy which on its own terms is nothing else but a labour reserve. For the services rendered we could have managed with less than half of the personnel and even with less than a third of the cost.

Mr Speaker, one does not make a country independent by giving a man a uniform and let him drive around in a black Mercedes Benz; one does not make a country independent by wasting money on bureaucratic elite who are not productive and who do not create productivity. Ligthelm and Coetzee, two senior officials of the Development Bank of Southern Africa, states that only a small privileged group have received the advantages of economic growth in the Third World. Sir, we are repeating that same mistake here in South Africa.

What is true of Transkei is true also of the other national independent states. Take the Ciskei. There we have a President who bought an aircraft which nobody used, then sold it and is going to build an airport which nobody wants. Take Venda and the gentleman whom we call the President of Venda, an unfortunate human being, somebody who has cheated fate by escaping the obscurity which he so richly deserves. That gentleman we have made President, and the last four months we have spent scrambling madly behind the scenes to save us and himself from his own stupidity and greed. Yet we say that is an independent country while we pour millions of rand into it.

Viewed from the need for development and the necessity for self-sufficiency and the creation of jobs and employment, the Government’s policy of self-governing states is nothing else but the multiplication of bureaucratic disaster areas, consuming vast amounts of capital that serve no other purpose but to service the wants and needs of a small privileged bureaucratic elite in seas of poverty and under-development, and who pays for it? We, the taxpayers, pay for it.

Are we then in this respect any different from any other country in Africa where we have had this economic largesse …

Mr Speaker, may I ask the hon the Leader of the Opposition a question?

No, I really do not have the time now. If there is time left at the end of my speech the hon member may ask me a question.

†This economic largesse has been abused by those countries. Are we any different from any other African country? We say that the West is disillusioned with Africa. Is it not time that we became disillusioned with ourselves and did some self-analysis? It would be comforting to say that what we are doing to the national states and the follies which we have committed in South West Africa/Namibia constitute only a clumsy attempt to rid ourselves of a colonial problem. However that is not true, because what happens there we are repeating with a vengeance outside those national states here in South Africa.

Tell us about Zimbabwe. Was the settlement an acceptable one?

If there is one enduring characteristic of the hon member for Durban North it is his stubbornness, like a mule. Like a mule he also has no pride of ancestry and no hope for posterity in politics. [Interjections.]

If it is true that we have a ratio of one civil servant to every 59 people of the population of Transkei, then the ratio for the rest of South Africa is 1 to 25. For every 25 people outside those areas, there is one civil servant. According to the Bulletin of Statistics, Volume 81 of March 1984, there are 998 124 people employed by either the central Government, the provincial administrations, statutory bodies, the Post Office or the South African Transport Services. This means that just under 1 million people are employed by the State at a total cost of R8 496 456 000 per annum. This represents 39,36% of the 1983-84 budget. If one adds the other 9% which I mentioned earlier, we are crawling up to Challiand’s 60% very closely.

One would have thought that with the policy of creating independent national states and national legislative assemblies, the size of the civil service would have decreased in the rest of South Africa. But not so. In 1976, 1977, 1979 and 1981, when these countries took independence, there was a steady increase in the civil service in the rest of South Africa.

What about the hon the Prime Minister’s police of rationalization? This policy was announced on 6 September 1979. The idea was to reduce 39 Government departments to 22 and these would resort under 18 Cabinet Ministers. This was necessary? I quote the reasons given: “To have better co-ordination, elimination of duplication, a conservation of manpower and better utilization of personnel.” But what happened? My research department investigated 22 of these departments between 1979 and 1981. These statistics come from the Government departments themselves. The total number of officials increased from 174 550 to 183 229, an increase of 55% over that period. However, the sharpest increases, funnily enough, took place in those departments which had to do with the implementation of the policy of separate development. In the Department of Community Development there was an increase of 42%; in the Department of Education and Training, 25% and even a new department has been created, the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning, with one of its specific tasks the creation new bureaucracies. It is ironical, but the very department which had to investigate the rationalization, increased its own membership by 36%. No wonder that we get complaints like those coming from people like the outgoing president of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut.

And now we stand on the brink of implementing a new constitution. Whatever the merits or demerits of that new constitution, from this perspective it must obviously be seen as a further extension of bureaucratic structures. When we ask about the cost of this the hon the Minister of Transport Affairs says: “Do not talk about cost; it will not be more than the cost of one metre of a new tarred road,” or “If the gold price goes up those costs will easily be recovered”. That is not the only cost. I hope by now I have been able to demonstrate quite clearly that we have been spending money as if it were going out of fashion. In fact, we are not spending enough money for one metre of a new tarred road but we are creating a four-lane one-way highway to disaster the way we have been spending money! Let me make it quite clear: Any attempt to solve South Africa’s very complex problems is going to cost money. [Interjections.] Quite possible it is going to cost a great deal of money. Precisely because it is going to cost a great deal of money we cannot afford to waste money as we have been doing. I accuse the Government of doing just that over the last 30 years. Through a policy of bureaucratic multiplication it has created self-governing national states whose economic dependency has increased to such an extent that the word “self-governing” is a mockery. Every year the taxpayer pours a fortune into the maintenance of these splendid bureaucratic failures. I want to warn again. The most important source of political instability in Africa has not been revolutions or coups but the creation of a self-perpetuating bureaucratic privileged class that has destroyed the economies of countries. The warning signals are flashing loud and clear also for South Africa in this regard. The only reason why we have survived so long has nothing to do with the competence of Government or the grandiose visions which it has for South Africa, but because of our mineral prices internationally and the subsequent economic development.

Bureaucratic expansion in any society is one of the most unproductive forms of capital expenditure. It multiplies jobs without increasing productivity. It diverts desperately needed capital resources for development away from what they should be doing, and that is creating employment opportunities and expanding the growth of the economy. Moreover, bureaucratic expansion destroys individual initiative. It increases the individual ’s dependency on the State. Is it any wonder that in Africa, and now also in South Africa, the highest good for the individual is not to explore his or her own creativity but to get a nice secure job from the State and to get a pension as soon as possible. We suffer from that disease in this very Parliament. In South Africa we have perfected this to a fine art. We tell people where they may move, where they may sit, where they may sleep, etc. We have inculcated in White, Black, Coloured and Asian in South Africa the spirit and expectancy that the State not only must but will supply housing, education, jobs and even leisure. One of the worst legacies of apartheid and separate development is that it has destroyed the individual’s sense of control over his own future and his initiative to work for it.

Bureaucratic expansion is the necessary and inevitable forerunner of corruption and inefficiency in government. It inevitably generates pockets of vested interests whose only concern is to keep their little kingdoms going and keep other bureaucratic competitors out. What else is this silly and unsavoury battle between Charles Sebe and Lennox Sebe but nepotism gone sour where they have been fighting with their competing little bureaucracies for control of that little bit?

And Zimbabwe?

Exactly the same has happened there.

Yet your colleague from Pietermaritzburg North in a newspaper article says that they have achieved a miracle of reconciliation.

Do not talk nonsense. [Interjections.] I believe that the time has come for us to restore sanity to government in this country, to call a halt to bureaucratic expansion that is threatening to run out of control. How can we do so? We can do so by observing three very simple rules.

Firstly, do not duplicate facilities. We have made a virtue out of that in this country. Where buildings stand empty we simply build other buildings for people to use rather than to use the empty ones. We do it in education. We are wasting money that way. Secondly, do not create administrative departments which are not accountable to anybody else but themselves. How do we call to account a President who waste money in that way? We sit here; we simply shake our heads and laugh and in laughing we confirm the worst stereotypes that people can have of incompetent presidents. We must have control over the money that is being handed over. Even the International Monetary Fund is beginning to discover that. [Interjections.] They are beginning to say that they have to monitor the capital that they have given to those countries for development. [Interjections.] They have not done so for a very long time. [Interjections.] I beg your pardon, Sir, I am referring to the World Bank. Thirdly, do not create departments—and this is very important—that serve no other purpose but to satisfy the ideological shortsightedness of the Government. For example—let us be honest—do we really need a department of defence in Transkei? Who are they going to fight? Do we really need a department of foreign affairs there? The only kind of affairs that they have is extraordinary affairs, and that has nothing to do with international diplomacy as far as I can see. So do we really need such a department? Why can we not advise them to use the money for creating jobs?

If we are really serious about looking for a constitutional solution to our problems, then we would not simply extend bureaucracy whenever we find that we are confronted with a problem. We would look at our scarce and very necessary resources. We would husband them; we would consult and negotiate with one another on how to use them to the best advantage of all our peoples. We would negotiate efficient workable structures to allocate and use them. I agree with the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning that that is the task that awaits us. This is what a country does that is involved in a struggle for survival. This is what a country does when it is involved with the politics of survival. It is our duty to impress upon the people outside that this is the task that awaits all of us, and not to create, in their eyes, the impression that the only legacy of politics is how to become an engine driver on the gravy train.

Mr Speaker, the reply to the hon the Leader of the Opposition’s speech he himself furnished towards the end of that speech, and I must say that that was actually very interesting. His reply was that the solution to the problems of South Africa were going to cost money in any case, regardless of which policy was adopted. Therein lies the problem. I want to ask the hon the Leader whether money would not also have to be spent on those states under his own policy of a federal state. [Interjections.] The policy of the hon the Leader of the Opposition would, of course, also cost money. All he can hide behind at the moment is the statement that he is not in power and cannot therefore tell us what his policy would cost. The point is, however, that his solution would also cost money. He would also have to have a public service, and the people working in that public service would have to be paid. According to what the hon the Leader has just said, it seems to me as if it would be very hard to be a public servant in terms of his policy, viz when his party was in power.

There is a great deal of what the hon the Leader of the Opposition said that one can agree with. He warned, inter alia, that we could simply no longer afford the policy of the Government. I want to agree with him in the sense that one must pay attention to the expenditure of money. It is essential to pay attention to the spending of money on the local front, and in respect of the national states. But it is equally true that one must not sacrifice everything to Mammon, to the kitty, make everything subservient to this end and say that money is the only determining factor. The hon the Leader of the Opposition, however, addressed the hon the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance on this issue, and they will probably be discussing this with him in more detail.

What has happened since we had the first debate at the beginning of the year? I maintain that this side of the House has confidently proceeded with the establishment of a new constitutional dispensation in the knowledge that the dispensation is being built on the recognition of the contribution everyone in the country can make towards ensuring peace, stability and good and sound relations. During the no-confidence debate the hon the Prime Minister held out the prospect of certain objectives and also made certain requests, and I want to refer briefly to two of the objectives and two of the requests, and then judge both the Government and the Opposition in the light of these aspects.

In the first place, in the no-confidence debate the hon the Prime Minister said that South Africa was at the crossroads of confrontation and peace. So there is no other choice but to strive for peace and stability in the region. I take it that everyone in this House and everyone in the country will agree with that statement. He went on to say that the rejection of the tyranny of communism was one of the objectives. I assume that everyone in the House and in the country approves of that objective. The hon the Prime Minister also made two requests. He appealed to the no-voters to endeavour to co-operate. He was therefore advocating cooperation. In this connection he said that he was not asking them to join him, but to display a positive attitude. He was therefore asking for co-operation and a positive attitude. I trust that such a request would prove acceptable to any right-minded person.

What has the Government done in this connection? I maintain that the Government applied itself unstintingly to the realization of the objectives set by the hon the Prime Minister at the beginning of the year. In this connection I want to mention only two examples. The first of these is the Nkomati Accord. We can consider the concluding of that treaty as a typical example, something which elicited both amazement and approval in many countries, both friends and enemies. I think that all right-minded South Africans praised the Prime Minister for what he had achieved for peace, stability, the creation of trading opportunities and co-operation in Southern Africa. This was in line with the objectives set at the beginning of the year. What is important is that no one in this country, nor President Machel, had any doubt about the basis on which the South African Government was conducting the negotiations. The hon the Prime Minister made it clear that the negotiations were being entered into on the understanding that there would be no interference in the domestic affairs of either party. There was therefore no toadying, for negotiations were being conducted with another independent state to negotiate the best possible deal for both countries.

The other example is the recent overseas trip by the hon the Prime Minister. I am convinced that in the years ahead this trip will be seen as one of the most remarkable and successful trips ever undertaken by a South African Prime Minister. The positive reaction throughout the world endorsed what I have said, notwithstanding the petty and destructive criticism levelled by the hon member for Lichtenburg in this House yesterday at the successes achieved by the Prime Minister. It is specifically because these successes are so generally recognized that his petty criticism, and that of the leader of the CP and Dr Connie Mulder, is so objectionable. The hon member for Water-berg’s statement that the Prime Minister was on his way overseas to hand the sovereignty of the Whites to European leaders on a platter, did not befit any person of upright character, least of all a person who is the leader of a party and who talks in flowing metaphors about his Christian conduct, his patriotism and the day he will govern the country as the leader of the Government. That statement certainly did our country, and the members of that hon member’s party, nothing but a disservice. The hon member for Brakpan is unfortunately not here in the House now, but I do want to ask him what his reaction is to that statement of his leader. In a discussion with a political correspondent the hon member for Brakpan said, on behalf of the CP, that his party wished the Prime Minister everything of the best on his overseas trip and that he had taken cognizance of the fact that it was being done in the interests of South Africa. I now want to ask him whether his leader’s statements were in the interests of South Africa. Does he endorse them? Does he endorse the reprehensible statements of a very important member of their party, Dr Connie Mulder?

What are the facts? What makes this visit of the Prime Minister so remarkable? In my opinion it is remarkable because he put South Africa’s case so fearlessly, namely that no one decides for us and that only we shall make decisions in the interests of our country and its people. He warned that Southern Africa should not be turned into a battle field by outside forces. We can commend him for that.

What has become of the Prime Minister’s requests? He asked for co-operation and a positive attitude.

In the no-confidence debate the hon the Leader of the Opposition said that this country’s primary objective should be to work for a united and strong South Africa for all its people. I agree with him. This is true. I want to tell him these are important words with universal significance. I want to ask him, however, whether all the members of his own caucus understood those words, because if I have to weigh up their statements against what the hon the Leader of the Opposition said, I must say that some of them fall short of the mark. I want to acknowledge that the hon the Leader is right in saying that there is a significant move away from a boycott attitude towards one of more positive involvement in the endeavour to make a positive contribution towards helping the Government to govern the country. I thank them for that. It looks as if the official Opposition is becoming increasingly aware that a policy, which the vast majority of the Whites in this country simply do not find acceptable, is not practical politics. This is true. I believe that is the reason for the decision, on the part of the PFP, to change their hard-headed approach, which led to a boycott policy, into one of more accessible cooperation.

Why am I saying that? Let us see how matters have progressed. Initially, when the President’s Council was established, the hon the Leader of the Opposition and his party refused to participate. They consequently played no part in the constitutional proposals. On that occasion the hon the Leader declared that they opposed and rejected it. He went on to say that he would counter the proposals with all his might. He also said that the plan was quite inadequate. In their referendum pamphlet the following is stated:

Funnily enough, I have read that the PFP members are now queueing up to be appointed to the same President’s Council they rejected. I read that there are at least 17 of them who are doing so, including the hon member Prof Olivier. At least according to newspaper reports. I do not know whether this is true. [Interjections.] If this is such an irresponsible council, would it not be irresponsible of the hon member …

Are you also going?

No, I am not. Then came the referendum, with its crushing defeat for the PFP. Now the Leader—and this is interesting—is announcing that if the Government considers the result to be a mandate for reform, it is the duty of the PFP to support the momentum for reform. Then the hon the Leader of the Opposition discovered that this support was becoming quite substantial because large numbers of his members were leaving the PFP. Now he is warning the Progs not to turn their backs prematurely on the PFP. He is telling them: “Steady now”.

He merely puts the rest of them in the President’s Council.

Yes. The latest statement by the hon the Leader of the Opposition in this regard was that he welcomed the Government’s small, slow efforts at reform. It is a good thing he welcomes it, but I want to warn him that because his members are leaving so quickly, he will eventually find himself without a party. We nevertheless thank him for their co-operation.

I now come to the CP. The hon the Prime Minister advocates co-operation and a positive attitude. After the referendum the hon member for Waterberg said that the referendum result and the possible commencement Constitution Act were not yet final. I wonder whether he still says that. He said that to them it was not the end of the road or a cul-de-sac. He went on to say: “We say it is only one fight in a continuing struggle.”

I would say that it will be a street fight as far as that party is concerned. During the no-confidence debate the hon member for Lichtenburg told the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs that the CP was prepared to make a constructive contribution and to help to solve the problems of South Africa. He must now judge that promise, for example, against the background of his own contribution yesterday in the House. Was it a positive and constructive contribution? His leader said that a part of the people rejected and scorned the sovereignty of Christ. Is that constructive? There was an attempt to plant a bomb at the venue of the Prime Minister’s meeting in Port Elizabeth, and it was said that this was an election gimmick. Was that constructive? The Prime Minister is giving away the sovereignty of the Whites on a platter. Is that constructive? The hon the leader of the CP said that if it were proved that the Scheuer pamphlet contained any untruths he would dissociate himself from it. Ds Scheuer apologized, but all we got from the hon the leader of the CP was a deafening silence. Is that constructive? The hon the leader of the CP said he would attend the Nkomati meeting and announced that he and his colleagues were there in the interests of a sound peace agreement. Did he not then say, to accommodate the HNP:

Is it any wonder that Mr Jaap Marais said in reply to this:

I think Mr Jaap Marais summed up the position very well.

What about the statements by Dr Connie Mulder. Are they constructive? Is the behaviour of the CP supporters constructive, when their leader is obliged to address the following words to them at their congress:

Do they not have it? He also said:

Is the hon leader worried about their negative attitude? He went on to say:

Are they doing so? I ask whether this is a constructive contribution. Is that party helping to solve the country’s problems if they have the AWB as their allies and refuse to dissociate themselves from the militant, destructive and disgraceful behaviour of the AWB? Are they helping to solve problems if they silently acquiesce to the behaviour and the statements of the Kappiekommando, if they hijack the policy of the HNP, become ensnared in rigidity and unadulterated White supremacy and disregard the most basic rights of others to make their own decisions about matters affecting themselves? Is it a solution to the problems if they help to disrupt the labour forces in the cultural sphere of the Afrikaner by participating eagerly in the establishment and activities of the Afrikanervolkswag and are directly responsible, under the cloak of culture, for forcing a political ideal down the throats of various family groups? I also want to ask whether it helps to solve problems if that party uses the Chief Whip of their own party to make announcements of an extremely personal nature on behalf of their own leader and other caucus members? Is that how one solves problems? Is that also the way in which they want to introduce politics into other organizations? Are they thereby serving the Afrikaner cause and helping to solve the country’s problems?

During the no-confidence debate the hon member said that today the NP was deeply and intrinsicly divided and was silent because it was in the process of losing control. I say the CP is divided. Their supporters are leaving them. Their dubious statements and methods are becoming familiar. They are losing control over the influence and behaviour of the HNP, the AWB and the Kappiekommando.

Today I cannot tell you whether our new constitution and the new constitutional dispensation are going to work. Nor can I tell you today whether we are going to reach consensus with the Coloureds and the Asians. But I want to conclude by saying that what I do know is that the success of the new constitution lies in the hands of, and depends on the attitude of, everyone living in this country.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Virginia devoted his speech for the most part to the CP and also referred in passing to the PFP and I shall say nothing further about it.

†The hon the Leader of the Opposition assembled some impressive statistics to indicate the wastage and bureaucracy that has developed in independent homelands and in South Africa itself, and I think that all thinking South Africans will agree with him. This is a matter of common cause and I know I have heard the same worries expressed within the Government itself. I think that his arguments in that respect were sound. I also welcome his attitude towards the visit of the hon the Prime Minister.

Before I come to what I want to say, I want to deal with the issue that took up so much of our time yesterday, namely the question of the propaganda pamphlet and the letter from the hon leader of the CP. I think it is necessary to put our view on record, but we also want to emphasize that this highlights a basic difference in attitude between ourselves and the Government. It highlights too the Government’s confusion between the interests of the State and the interests of the political party which is the Government. Here we have two elements involved. One is a State document, a document that is the property of the State, dealing with State issues within a Cabinet portfolio, and its use in a political pamphlet. This is something that we cannot get across to the Government—that the NP is not South Africa, it is not the State of South Africa. It is the party that administers South Africa in terms of an electoral mandate. This shows up very clearly in this regard.

As far as the pamphlet is concerned, there are two clear aspects as well. Firstly, there is the undoubted falsification which is not denied. However, the lack of any apology or regret is apparent. In fact, it is the opposite. There is an attempt to defend it. There has been an attempt to defend what has been done and to say it is not terribly serious. We believe that the person who perpetrated that falsification should be dealt with. I have no time to take that matter further.

The second aspect is in regard to the privilege of State documents. Everyone of us as MPs writes to Ministers, often on confidential and sensitive issues affecting people, and we want an assurance that State correspondence received by Ministers will not be used in order to play politics and thus embarrass or make it impossible for members of Parliament of all parties to act openly and frankly in our dealings with the Government as such.

As this is the last general debate of this Parliament in this form of government, I think one is entitled to look back very briefly over the rich and often turbulent history which this institution has covered over the years, going back to the National Convention, Union, two world wars, strikes, riots, revolution, the formation of political parties, coalitions, fusions, breakaways, splits—too many even to mention. The “Winds of Change” speech is in the memory of some of us as is the impact it had on Africa and particularly on South Africa relevant to the new constitution that lies ahead in September. I am one of the few left—there are perhaps, four or five of us—who when we came to Parliament came at a tune when there were still Coloured voters on the voters’ roll and Native Representatives sitting in this House and in the Senate. We fought the abolition of those rights, some served through two decades of all-White power, and we are still here to see the end of that era which has passed like a hiccup in history. I want to say to the hon leader and members of the CP that the ending of that unhappy interlude is an irreversible step. If the new Constitution should fail, it would not be the NP or the Government alone which would suffer but South Africa would be subjected to confrontation and conflict in the years ahead.

It is a challenge to all South Africans, including the hon members of the CP and the PFP, and the other political parties of other groups, to build upon this start and to try to make the new Constitution work. I want to say to Black South Africans that this step which we are taking into a new Parliament has opened the door for negotiation for them too. If the new Constitution fails, these doors for the Black South Africans will be slammed in their faces. There is no going back to the drawing board. They should be hoping that the new deal is going to work rather than trying to destroy it or looking for its failure.

The final onus rests on Government,—the hon the Prime Minister and the Government—which is the only authority which has the power to make the new Constitution succeed. However, there is an equal responsibility on Opposition parties, a responsibility not to sabotage the process of reform by paying lip service to it, but undermining it in attitude to participation.

I think I am entitled to say too that I and this party are proud of the contribution which the United Party and the NRP have made to the constitutional thinking upon which the new Constitution is based. I admit freely that the United Party made mistakes. No party has all the answers. The policies of the NP Government which followed it, however, were an unmitigated total disaster and it made of this country the admitted polecat of the world. It was at the time when that was happening that the United Party in the 1960s realized and accepted the need to face up to the effects and consequences of “uhu-ru” in Africa—freedom, independence—which showed that the unitary system with all its consequences was not the answer for South Africa’s divided plural society. It was the United Party which extended its philosophy into a new concept of group control over intimate affairs and joint decision-making on common affairs in a corporate confederation of communities, designed to meet South Africa’s diversity. To this the NRP added the final element to make it complete, and that was the concept of confederation with the homelands.

In contrast the NP took nearly 20 years to adjust to the new demands, and blindly tried to impose its own uhuru on a fragmented patch work of non-viable homelands which did not want it and which were to be put into some vague constellation. It was that party which had and still has no policy for the Blacks living outside those homelands in the area occupied by all races. By the time the Government started to look seriously for alternatives, we had already pioneered the road.

We pioneered the new concept of group autonomy in intimate affairs and shared power which made a contribution to shaping the direction of the new Constitution but which unfortunately has some vital elements missing from it before it will work.

This is perhaps the time to answer the question raised at times and touched on by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning this afternoon. The question asked is if the Government is following the road which we pioneered and is accepting our policy, why we do not join them and help them against the extremists. The fact of the matter is that this party did just that in the referendum, despite our differences. The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning did not say then that we were a disintegrating element which had no place in politics. The Government was darn glad to have our help. [Interjections.] Today the hon the Minister talked about our disintegrating and disappearing like sand, but that was not the attitude eight months ago. This party has always stood by the Government on defence and security matters, usually on foreign affairs and on each step of positive change conforming to our philosophy, job reservation, trade unions, sport, amenities and open central business districts, and we will continue to do so wherever we believe it to be in the interests of South Africa.

I want to crystallize in a nutshell the essentials of the philosophy to which we are bound. Firstly, there is the recognition and accommodation of the plural nature of our society. Secondly, political rights for all South Africans on an equitable and responsible basis within a federal confederal system.

Thirdly, there is the decentralization of power, maximum self rule and local option, and fourthly the removal of outmoded discrimination and respect for human dignity. I see my time is running short and will mention only these.

Most people will accept that these philosophies are desirable objectives, and most will pay at least lipservice to those objectives and ideals. However, it is in the achievement of these objectives that differences emerge.

I want to put it on record that this party is committed by its philosophy and specific policy decisions, of which I want to quote just a few, namely an elective form of provincial or regional Government; determining the aspirations and attitudes of non-homeland Blacks and their accommodation in the decision-making process; a confederation with its own common nationality and a common economy; socio-economic policies recognizing human dignity and feelings; winning acceptance for the free enterprise and Western value system; the highest degree of flexibility and freedom of choice in local communities; maximum devolution; and the repeal of hurtful symbols such as section 16 of the Immorality Act and the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. Above all there should be a relaxed society without imposed cultural or religious conformity, and general attitudes flowing from this philosophy. There should especially be an end to the administrative arrogance and ham-handed blundering we so often see.

I believe that many members of the Government and even people in its leadership ranks may agree with these objectives which I have set but that they are stifled and held back by their caucus and Cabinet decisions which bind them too closely to policies that have failed in the past. I would love to be proved wrong but it seems clear that the Government is firmly committed to centrally imposed segregation which denies local option to communities as to the character of their neighbourhood; and that the Government is intent on uniformity and centralized control of local Government itself, without the flexibility needed to meet differing local circumstances and to accommodate minorities. It seems set on the elimination of an effective elective second tier Government. It seems clear that the Government considers devolution as being the delegation of administrative powers to carry out a centrally determined policy. It seems to be continuing with removals for ideological reasons, and we get no positive sign of progress on the part of the special Cabinet Committee in its negotiations on the position of non-homeland Blacks. Finally, there seems to be a paralyzing fear of the CP and its exploitation of racism. As I say, I hope I can be proved wrong, because these attitudes are stumbling-blocks to creating the climate in which the new constitution can work and make consensus possible.

Then there are the “holy cows”. An example is that the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs is negotiating now over the outmoded Prohibition of Political Interference Act, which shows that before we start there are problems. There has to be give and take to create the climate in which consensus becomes reality. The NRP is committed in the new Parliament, which will be the ultimate test, and especially in the standing committees, to making the best possible contribution in the best possible way. We will go on fighting for this objective and providing a political home for moderates who reject the PFP and the CP, who are still anti-Govern-ment but who are prepared to throw their support behind positive reforms.

When I accepted re-election as leader of this party in January I accepted a commitment to maintain the principles and philosophy of the NRP so that it can play its part in the new Republic, working for the sort of South Africa to which we are committed.

In passing, I want to say—there has been much speculation about it lately—that I have no intention of deserting the NRP or of crossing the floor and joining the NP, PFP or the CP. [Interjections.] I have a job to which I am committed, and I will do it in the hope that these things which we believe in will lead to the sort of South Africa which we want to see. I see hope for the future. I want that hope turned to reality, to see this philsophy fulfilled. However, it will demand dedication and sacrifice by our supporters and ourselves. I ask no one to sacrifice his principles or beliefs but I do ask him to do what South Africa expects of true patriots, namely to give his backing to and to participate in trying to create lasting peace and harmony in this country.

Mr Speaker, I want to thank the hon the leader of the NRP for the positive note he struck in his speech this afternoon. We also want to thank him for assisting us so well in the referendum. He expressed certain ideas here today to which we could give attention in the future and which we could think about. To me they appeared to be quite positive. However, I want to tell the hon member that his future lies closer to the NP. [Interjections.] I do not wish to refer to the speech of the hon the leader of NRP any further, but I rather want to come to those loquacious hon members in the CP. [Interjections.] The amazing shortsightedness of the CP leaves one dumbfounded. The Government succeeds in achieving one of its greatest diplomatic successes ever by penetrating and disrupting the Russian sphere of influence in Southern Africa, but the leaders of the CP see fit to belittle the diplomatic successes of the Government in one biting attack after another. We concluded the Nkomati Accord and it caused a stir in the Kremlin and let the world look at South Africa through friendlier eyes. It brought Southern Africa closer to South Africa. Then followed the hon the Prime Minister’s successful overseas visit. He was invited by seven countries and he was received cordially everywhere; something we had for decades regarded as being impossible. He made friends and breakthroughs for South Africa everywhere, but that is of no value to the shortsighted CP leaders; to them all these successes are evil. It makes one wonder whether petty politics has ever descended to the level one encounters in the CP today. [Interjections.] In their bitterness, frustration and political despair they do not care how they harm South Africa. [Interjections.] I ask hon members of the CP to act magnanimously for a change. Are they not able to rise above such pettiness? [Interjections.] I ask them to rise above such pettiness and to discuss major issues with us today.

The hon member for Lichtenburg even went so far as to prey on the hon the Prime Minister’s overseas successes in conjunction with the socialist Press of Europe. For example, he quoted The Guardian, one of the most venomous enemies of South Africa, against the hon the Prime Minister.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon member for Kuruman allowed to try to intimidate the hon member by holding up a pamphlet? He is obviously not interested in a meaningful debate being conducted in this House.

Order! The hon member for Bloemfontein North may proceed.

I want to assure the hon member for Kuruman that he will not succeed in intimidating me even if he produced all his party’s pamphlets and those of all the other parties as well. [Interjections.] Nor will he succeed in preventing me from speaking about the pettiness of his party.

The hon member for Lichtenburg quoted The Guardian, the most venomous enemy of South Africa, against the hon the Prime Minister. The fact is that the Kremlin cried about South Africa’s diplomatic successes, but the Kremlin is probably smiling today about the unexpected support it received from the CP in yesterday’s debate. [Interjections.]

When the leader of a country goes on an important mission, such as the overseas visit of our hon Prime Minister, one could at least expect him to be given the support of all loyal citizens of the country, that they would strengthen his hand because it is in the interests of their own country that he undertake such a mission.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: The hon member for Kuruman is sitting with his back to you and is continually making interjections while the hon member for Bloemfontein North is speaking.

I should be pleased if the hon member for Kuruman would refrain from continually making interjections.

When a leader of a country—the hon the Prime Minister in this case—goes overseas, one strengthens the hand of such a leader because it is in the interests of one’s country that he go there. The hon the leader of the CP did not do so, however. He cast a cloud of suspicion and doubt over this visit. He said at Warmbaths that the Prime Minister went to Europe to present the sovereignty of the Whites in South Africa to Europe on a platter as a gift. A statement of this nature is really so ridiculous that one should not even react to it. If there is one thing the hon the Prime Minister spelt out very clearly to overseas leaders it is that he had gone there to talk, but that he was only doing so on the basis of non-interference in South Africa’s affairs. The sovereignty of the Whites of South Africa was never relevant or at stake in these talks. When the hon the leader of the CP was still the leader of the NP in the Transvaal he warned against scandal-mongers, but now he himself is a scandal-monger. In view of this overseas visit, the leader of the CP says that one does not make an open market of one’s own country for everyone to come in. Today he must tell us what he means by this woolly statement of his. The impression he wants to create is that the Prime Minister of South Africa went to throw open and cheapen. What a false representation! The hon the Prime Minister represented our country with the greatest dignity, grace and self-respect. He did not act as an apologist or like a beggar or an accused in the dock of the world, but spoke to them as the equal of the leaders of great countries. Even some of our most vehement critics had to admit that our Prime Minister did not allow himself to be humiliated abroad, but that he emerged from those talks the epitome of strength, unruffledness and statesmanship. Apart from that, he showed Europe that he is a man of strength and a strong leader, not only in South Africa, but also in Southern Africa. He also showed himself to be a leader who is prepared to lead this subcontinent to peace and prosperity. Today Europe is looking to the hon the Prime Minister to lead this subcontinent. Our Prime Minister did not cheapen this country, as the hon the leader of the CP is insinuating. He once again made Europe aware that South Africa is a proud country that will not beg or bow. He succeeded in bringing home to Western leaders that the world dare no longer ignore the importance of South Africa as a regional power in Southern Africa. Just as in the case of the Nkomati Accord, the leader of the CP and his party adopted a spineless attitude to the hon the Prime Minister’s visit. The hon the Prime Minister succeeded in achieving one of the greatest diplomatic successes in the history of our country. For the first time we succeeded in penetrating the hard core of isolation, and South Africa’s Prime Minister was openly invited by Western leaders to go and put South Africa’s case. He acquitted himself of his task like a true statesman and succeeded in setting European leaders thinking about the harsh realities of Southern Africa once again. After this visit we are detecting the first signs of South Africa’s honour being restored in the Western community. But whilst the hon the Prime Minister is trying to tie the knot for South Africa overseas, the hon the leader of the CP and his chief lieutenants, the hon members for Rissik and Lichtenburg, are gossiping about him behind his back. The CP are telling the voters in Potgietersrus and Rosettenville that the Government is buckling under pressure from abroad and that the hon the Prime Minister is so busy with overseas countries that he has forgotten about his own people. That is what they are telling the voters, whilst the hon the Prime Minister is fighting for South Africa in the front trenches overseas. To say the least, it is disgraceful of the CP to be playing around with our country’s interests for the sake of political gain.

Where was the hon the leader of the CP upon the Prime Minister’s triumphant arrival at the D F Malan airport? The members of the CP were conspicuous by their absence. They had hoped that there would be few people there that day, that there would be little interest, but there were thousands of people there. The leaders of the CP were not there because they are just as negative, cool and ice cold about this historic visit as they were about the Nkomati Accord. They are cool and indifferent to South Africa’s successes. The hon the Prime Minister went overseas to serve the highest interests of South Africa, but the hon the leader of the CP obviously does not care about this. He is concerned with petty political advantages for his party. He is seeking an advantage for his own party at the expense of South Africa’s interests.

I want to ask the hon the leader of the CP to reconsider timeously and not to allow himself to be used by Mr Jaap Marais and the far right contrary to South Africa’s interests. The HNP is beginning to prescribe to the CP to an increasing extent, and the CP is beginning to travel the path prescribed by Mr Jaap Marais to an increasing extent. The foreign policy of the HNP has always been one of extreme short-sightedness, which will make South Africa go under in complete isolation, and now the CP is following closely on the HNP’s heels in respect of foreign policy, The CP is only a few paces behind the HNP’s senseless extremism, if it is in fact still behind the HNP.

Under the influence of the HNP, the hon the leader of the CP is rejecting the Cahora Bassa agreement and he is getting cold feet about the Nkomati Accord. For the sake of a few HNP votes in Potgietersrus he is also rejecting Resolution 435 now, with which he initially agreed. He does not care what he does to South Africa’s international relations, as long as he can gain a few votes. The hon the leader of the CP must know that he is doing South Africa a disservice by acting so opportunistically. With this kind of behaviour the hon the leader finds himself in the company of people who are disloyal to South Africa. The enemies of South Africa are seeking our country’s isolation so that they can destroy it, and I want to say that the policy of the CP is also heading towards isolation. They shoot down all our attempts to move outwards. By doing so the CP is playing right into the hands of the enemies of South Africa who want to isolate South Africa from the outside world.

Mr Speaker, if I had to follow the advice of the hon member for Bloemfontein North, namely to rise above all pettiness, I would have had to ignore his speech entirely, because his speech was from beginning to end a personal attack on me and the conduct of the CP. He would be well advised to re-examine the speech I made in this House on the Nkomati Accord. What I found commendable as well as the reservations we had in that regard, I stated both here and elsewhere.

The hon member now wants us to praise everything in an unqualified way. I do not begrudge his praising the hon the Prime Minister, but I now want to bring something to his attention which he will have to weigh up when he sings the praises of the Nkomati Accord. I want to ask the hon member to go back and reconsider whether there is not something more to say or even something to ask when reflecting on what ensued from the Nkomati Accord. I have with me here a report which appeared in The Daily Telegraph of 21 May in London.

A leftwing newspaper.

It may perhaps be left-wing, but a left-wing newspaper may quote a factual statement. [Interjections.] I ant to put a question to the hon the Minister of Environment Affairs and Fisheries and he can react to it later. The general secretary of the resistance movement in Mozambique made a statement to this newspaper which was quoted in this report. The hon the Minister may refute it if he wishes, but the following assertion was made:

Does the hon member believe that newspaper?

The hon the Minister must now tell us what we are dealing with. There are even the negotiations after Nkomati with internal forces in Maputo. Were we not the supporters of those people against a Marxist regime? Here the general secretary is now stating that we are defending a regime that was formerly our enemy. [Interjections.]

I should like to follow up the suggestion of the hon member for Bloemfontein North and make a few points against the background of the situation in which we find ourselves. I want to say that we have reached the end of an era in our political and constitutional history.

Why not say something about platters, too.

As far as platters are concerned, I want to tell the hon the Deputy Minister that he can moderate his language a little when he speaks in this House, and I am referring here to a speech which he made against me here. The hon the Deputy Minister would be well advised to take another look at it, and he could also moderate his language a little.

On the question of how the new dispensation came into existence, the decision in that regard and how it was presented to the voters, one could still hold a long discussion by way of retrospection. We could also spend a long time discussing the methods that were employed and the factors which led up to it. We could also form different opinions about it. However, there is not one of us who will find fault with me when I say that South Africa will not be able to return to precisely the same political situation as the one we now have. Reference is also made in the second place to the democratic process by means of which we have arrived at the termination of the old dispensation, and then the democratic process is held up to us as allegedly meaning the end of further democratic process. The CP’s approach is that we are going to remain part of this democratic process. In the second place we are going to exercise our rights to indicate the untenableness of the new Constitution. In the third place we say that the democratic processes did not come to a halt when the referendum result became known; and in the fourth place we say that if amendments to the Constitution Act are already appearing on the Order Paper of this House now, even before it has come into operation, future amendments will not be excluded either. We say further that the CP will do everything in its power to obtain the support of the majority of the Whites. Any party does that, and the CP will also do so. If it receives that support then democracy will require that steps be taken that will give expression to the will of the majority. That is democratic. [Interjections.]

Furthermore I want to say, and everyone is agreed on this, that Whites cannot continue to govern over other peoples. Our civilizing action in this country has brought development, in the sphere of education and all the other facilities and opportunities. It has opened up prospects for all the peoples in this country and has enabled them to see how political machinery is handled in the interests of an own community. In addition, the process of development and political emancipation has not yet run its course. There I agree with what the hon the Minister for Constitutional Development and Planning said here earlier today. The process of development and political emancipation has not yet run its course. In the independent states the situation is not yet such that we and others who wish them everything of the best, can feel happy about events within those states. I need not elaborate on this. We are taking cognisance of the things that are happening there, and we are filled with the desire, with the wish, that things may go better so that those people can govern themselves in an effective way within their own area of jurisdiction. As far as the self-governing states are concerned, those states are on their way, and as far as I personally am concerned I took cognisance with appreciation of reports this morning over the radio that the self-governing state of kwaNdebele is thinking in terms of independence and is now setting its sights on the goal.

As far as the Coloureds and the Indians are concerned, these two groups in South Africa did not have a satisfactory political or constitutional dispensation. The machinery which did exist was not satisfactory to them. We need not go into the reasons for that. The CP realizes that they did not find the dispensation which as applied up to now satisfactory, and that something must be found in its place. It goes without saying that at the moment they will grab at any dispensation which means an improvement for them on the dispensation which they had.

Except a homeland.

The hon member will be surprised. I could just tell that hon member that the proposals they now have before them, on which they are going to vote, are surely not proposals they gladly accept. They are accepting them merely as a launching pad. Surely that is merely a foot in the door. Hon members must therefore not pride themselves that the new Constitution is accepted by the Coloureds and the Indians as a finality. They will endeavour to change it in a direction which suits them.

I say that the process of emancipation has not yet run its course. The position of Black citizens outside the national states is a very important subject of enquiry at the moment. But we say that it will develop in one of two directions. Either one considers these people to be permanent, to such an extent part of the Republic of South Africa that they are considered to be part of the “staatsvoik” (state people) of the Republic of South Africa, that is to say citizens of a unitary state together with Whites, Coloureds and Indians, as part of these “staatsvoik” with a claim to participate in the government of the country in which they are living. This is a key statement that was made on the part of the Government, namely a citizen must have the right, in the country in which he is living, to participate in the government of that country. I am referring specifically now to a statement made by the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning. If that is so, they exercise their franchise in the country in which they are living and if they exercise their franchise there, they elect their representatives to the Parliament of the country in which they are living. That, I think, is the logic of that situation. One therefore either considers them to be part of a unitary state together with the Whites and all the others, or one considers them to be citizens of those separate peoples for whom national states of their own with Governments of their own were created, as the NP has been doing over the years and as it is continuing to do with kwaNdebele and others, but not as far as the Whites, the Coloureds and the Indians are concerned. If it is true that one considers them to be citizens of separate peoples for whom there are own governments and national states, then one devises, as was done in the past and as is at present again being investigated, liaison machinery by means of which those citizens can realise their political aspirations through their own political channels and structures.

In this connection the question of participation in a confederation is being mentioned, but if one talks of a confederation as the alternative, or as a level on which one wishes to accommodate the political aspirations of Blacks outside the national states, then it still remains a fact that this is still an association of independent states which associate and co-operate voluntarily. Then in our opinion, however, it would not make sense to accommodate, let us say, approximately 10 million Black people politically in one independent state together with Whites, Coloureds and Indians and create a Black-dominated state—because that will be the result—and to make such a Black-dominated state a member of a confederation of states with the intention of then allowing the political rights of Black people to come into their own in the confederation first, for then it is not necessary. One does not need a confederation to accommodate the political aspirations of Black people in that way.

In this connection one should, of course, ask what the position of the Whites in this context is, and then I do not think there is any difference of opinion when I say that everyone admits that the Whites must respect the human dignity of others, but we say at the same time and in the same breath that the recognition of the human dignity of people does not necessarily mean that it presupposes a unitary community or a unitary state.

In addition, I think it is an historic fact that the Afrikaner in particular has performed a pioneering task and that they were the first anti-colonialistic people in Southern Africa who marshalled their forces against imperialism, and that in that respect they waged a vicarious struggle for liberation in Southern Africa. In the footsteps of the Afrikaners in throwing off the shackles of domination, the Whites in this country also paved the way for Black peoples to attain autonomy and independence.

In this process the Whites consistently refused to be dominated by any other people, and in particular to give the non-Whites a share in the government over Whites.

There are factors which we can foresee will come into operation in the near future and which will not give satisfaction, neither to the Whites, Blacks, Coloureds nor Indians. Firstly, I want to say that if one safeguards Whites against domination by Blacks and yet one opens the door to co-government of Whites by Coloureds and Indians, one is not going to create satisfaction. Mr Jac Rabie has already intimated that after 22 August the Coloureds are going to become co-governors of the Whites, and he is overjoyed at the prospect. Secondly, I want to say that if one subjects Blacks to co-govemment by Coloureds and Indians, one will not create satisfaction either. In this connection warning notes have already been sounded by people such as Dr Phatudi and Chief Buthelezi.

Furthermore, I want to say that if one subdivides Black peoples into national state factions and republic factions, one will not create satisfaction in that way either. If one is going to regard Blacks outside the national states as “staatsvolk” of the republic of South Africa together with Whites and then allow them to participate in the government of the country, one will not create satisfaction either.

You mean “a nation”?

We know what the difference is between “nation” and “people”, and we can debate it, but at the moment that is not the point of my argument. My point is the NP gave the Black peoples their own states, and within those own states of theirs in which the Black people were, there is a Black “staatsvolk” and at the same time, too, a people in the cultural sense of the word. The NP, however, wishes to create a “staatsvolk” for the Republic of South Africa on the pattern of Prof Degenaar with his State nationalism, in which everyone who is merely a citizen of a state is part of the nation. This is in conflict with the course and the policy of the NP up to now.

In addition, I want to say that one will also not create satisfaction by increasingly allowing the territory of the Republic to be occupied through Black urbanization in White areas. This is a difficult matter, a very difficult problem, but I do not think there can be any difference of opinion in this regard. If a person allows the territory of the Republic to be occupied to an increasing extent by Black people, then one is working in the direction that those people who are here in increasing numbers and who are regarded as people who live in this country—and of whom the hon the Minister said that they should have the right, in the country in which they are living, to participate in the government of the country—will demand to govern the country in conjunction with you.

Finally I want to refer to the document to which so much reference has already been made. I appreciate the hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development agreeing to make the document available to me. A few weeks ago I approached the Director-General in this connection. To tell the truth, when the document in question was published in a so-called abbreviated version, I addressed enquiries to the Department of Education and Training. However, they did not have it and my secretary then enquired at the department of Co-operation and Development. Perhaps we did not reach the right channel, because nothing came of my enquiry there. I am not apportioning any blame, but I am merely saying that possibly I did not reach the right channel.

A few weeks ago I asked the Director-General about the document in view of its publication. He had it within the space of a week and told me in the Lobby that he had found the document and that it agreed with the description of the copy I had given him. Some time had elapsed, but I still felt although he had told me that it agreed with the description, I wanted to see precisely what was stated in that document. With a view to that, I telephoned him last Monday and said that I should like to see the document again. He said that I could come and have a look at look at it, and I did. My suspicion was then confirmed that the copy of the document had been tampered with in the propaganda pamphlet. I wanted the document for copying purposes, but he told me that 1 could not have it without the Minister’s consent. I telephoned the Minister on Monday and he told me that I should give him a little time. I telephoned the Director-General again on Tuesday morning, and he told me that he had not been to see the Minister yet. When I telephoned on Tuesday afternoon, he told me that it was with the Minister. That evening the Minister let me know that he would like to talk to me about it the next morning. I saw the Minister on Wednesday morning and he asked me what I wanted to do with the document since it was not freely available for general use. I then told him that his party had obtained the document and was using it against me and therefore I demanded the right to defend myself against it. He then said that I should give him until three o’clock, and that three o’clock would be the deadline. He telephoned me at a quarter to two and said that the document was available. That is how the document came into my possession.

I do not think there can be any doubt that this document is a scurrilous piece of propaganda which I find extremely objectionable. I do not think I can state it in any stronger terms than those used by an afternoon newspaper to describe the misuse of such a State document. The Argus said, inter alia, in its editorial today, and I quote:

What more could possibly be in the national interest now? I quote further:

In the little blue book there is a very strong statement on page 24. I shall quote it:

Naturally this little book now purports to furnish the correct facts. The hon the Minister of Internal affairs, the leader of the NP in Transvaal writes in the foreword:

[Interjections.] I have read through the little book and in my opinion it contains at least two dozen untruths. I want to point out a few of them.

I want to say here this afternoon that in speeches which I made, particularly, too, in the speech to which the hon members opposite are referring, namely the one made at the time of the foundation meeting of the Afrikanervolkswag, I was not guilty of radicalism and the fomenting of racial hatred as is alleged here in this book.

Secondly, the allegation that I supposedly said that I was not talking politics, but war, is false. I know precisely what I said.

Then say it.

I shall say it. I have a verbatim version, according to a tape recording, of the speech here. I am quoting from page 10:

Then I said by way of parenthesis:

[Interjections.]

I first want to hear that tape recording!

The hon member for Kimberley South does not believe me. Sir, I do not know whether I may do this, but I want to issue a challenge to him: If he can produce any evidence to prove that I did in fact say what is stated in this little blue book, I shall donate R1 000 to his party. So certain am I of what I said. I did not first say: Let us make a deal. I say it is an untruth that I made “onverbloemde oproepe tot rassebotsings en burgeroorlog”.

It is also an untruth that Mr Eugene Terre’Blanche was a speaker at the foundation meeting of the CP on 20 March 1982. [Interjections.] I am talking about the founding of the CP. For the information of the hon Minister of Co-operation and Development—he can be such a pleasant Minister—I want to point out to him that in a letter to the hon member for Brits last year I drew to his attention that he had made the same statement, which was not true, in a propaganda document of the NP. I asked him whether he had any evidence for that statement, such as a photograph which he had taken, for example, but he did not react. But now the same untruth is also being repeated in this little blue book.

The statement is also being made that the AWB is ostensibly the military wing of the CP. [Interjections.] May I therefore say that because this little blue book contains two dozen untruths, its author is the untruthspeaking wing of the NP?

Let us go further. It is stated: “’n Stem vir die KP is ’n stem vir die HNP; is ’n stem vir die AWB en vir uiteindelike diktatuur”. In view of what is to be expected under the new dispensation, I could put it as follows: A vote for the NP is a vote for a coalition government; is a vote for Rev Hendrickse; is a vote for integration. [Interjections.] I say it is a lie—in the words of the hon the Minister of Foreign Affairs—that the CP is now officially known to be opposed to attacks on the ANC. How did he come by such a statement? Surely it is simply a repetition of the absurdity we had during the referendum, namely that because one was voting against the Constitution and the ANC was also opposed to the Constitution, you and they were now bedfellows. [Interjections.] According to that argument, because the PFP is opposed to the CP’s policy, the ANC is opposed to the CP’s policy and the communists are opposed to the CP’s policy, that is why they are all bedfellows now, because they are all opposed to the same cause. What kind of logic and nonsense is that?

Surely it is a lie to allege that the leaders of the CP were in favour of a mixed Cabinet as long ago as 1977. [Interjections.] The hon members must not leave the hon the Leader of the Transvaal so badly in the lurch. Surely they are leaving him terribly in the lurch now, because in the information which he disseminated he said that the Council of Cabinets would not be a supreme Cabinet. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon members must give the hon member an opportunity to complete his speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, but things are not all that hectic yet.

Surely it is also a lie that the CP wishes to establish a Coloured homeland in the barren North West. [Interjections.] How do hon members arrive at that conclusion? We said the Coloured people of the Cape Peninsula remained precisely where they were, because the Cape Peninsula was part of the heartland of the Coloured people. [Interjections.]

Order!

The hon members must please give me a chance. The homeland areas of kwaZulu are virtually part of Durban, adjoining the White area. And kwaZulu is a self-governing area. Why cannot we take that further and say that it is also possible that people can live in such a large area and that that area belongs to them and they can create employment opportunities and an infrastructure there? After all, the Government is building up an infrastructure there. What is wrong with that? The NP is implementing a policy, the underlying principle of which has a certain logic, and that logic is this: It does not matter whether there are various areas or how large those areas are; one can accommodate them under one system, under one government. We submit that if a person can provide this for a state such as Qwaqwa, kwaZulu and even Bophuthatswana, there is in principle nothing wrong with accommodating scattered Coloured areas in which large numbers of these people are living under a parliament.

There are more than 300.

More than 300? But what about the 633 group areas then? Why does that hon member not tell the people that the 633 group areas are fewer than the 300 towns in which they are living. Why does he not tell them how many of those group areas are situated here, all in one spot in the Cape Peninsula? [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, before turning to the speech of the hon member for Waterberg I just want to refer briefly to something else. In the first place I want to refer to a statement made in the course of his speech by the hon the Leader of the Opposition. I did not write down his exact words, but basically he questioned rationalization as undertaken by the Government and intimated that it had come to nothing, except that we now had a bigger Public service. However, I should like to provide the hon the Leader of the Opposition with a few facts. In the first instance, he omits, in the course of his argument, to mention the fact that due to rationalization there has been a drastic reduction in the number of State Departments, and that this has led to improved co-ordination. Secondly, when analysing how many public servants there are, and the fact that they have grown in number, he does not attempt, as he sometimes does in respect of other matters, to carry out a scientific analysis of why this is so. The two main reasons why this is so are, in the first place, that there is a growing number of children at school due to the education policy of the Government. We are placing an increasing number of children of school-going age—that is to say seven years—in schools. Moreover, a vast training programme for teachers is under way. The hon leader is surely not opposed to our employing more teachers? That is the main reason why the number of Public Servants has increased. Larger numbers of teachers enter the employ of the State every year, to keep pace with the service the State has to provide. In the second place, due to the new differentiated dispensation and the economic problems we are struggling with, two things have happened simultaneously. The improved dispensation has already proved to be an attraction in filling vacant posts. The recession in the economy occurred at the same time, and whenever that happens there is an influx of people from the private sector to the public sector. These are the two main reasons for the increase in the number of public servants. Therefore, if the hon Leader cannot prove that the increase in the number of public servants is due to the unnecessary creation of all kinds of new institutions, he ought not to advance such an argument. I should be pleased to discuss this matter in greater detail at the appropriate time during the discussion of my Vote or on some occasion next year, because there are really scientific answers to the phenomena to which he referred.

The hon member for Durban Point made a typical Rosettenville-oriented speech here. He attempted to illustrate and bring to the fore the merit of the NRP in South African politics. I do not say that the NRP has no merit. Indeed, there is appreciation, which has continued after the referendum, for the degree to which the NRP adopts a responsible approach to national issues. Later in my speech I shall come back to a further analysis of this. At this stage I just want to say that I think that the hon member is seeking the NRP’s claim to achievement, in the past. In a confused presentation of the process of political development he claims credit for, inter alia, the philosophy that own affairs are recognized and that own decision-making on own affairs for people and groups should be given effect to.

Joint decision-making?

On joint affairs. However, what is the history of his party and his party’s antecedents as regards the creation by this side of the House of own decision-making institutions for other peoples? Is that not why the Sunday Times withdrew its support from his party’s predecessor and spoke about their unrealistic resistance to the national states becoming independent? The NRP has a history of offering resistance. It was only when we had translated this into reality to the extent that they no longer had any alternative but to accept it that the NRP accepted this concept together with the NP.

I now turn to the hon member for Waterberg. I find it ironical that the hon member should quote from the English Press twice in one speech in order to score a point against the NP. I want to remind the hon member for Waterberg of what he said when he was still a member of the NP and leader of the party in the Transvaal. He said: “Jy is ook nie regs as jy alle linkse koerante fynkam vir ’n beriggie tot nadeel van die NP en dit dan deel van jou klagstaat teen die NP maak nie”. What did he say then?—

However, what did the hon member do here this afternoon? He came up with two quotations in one speech, one from England and one from The Argus, to find something to the detriment of the NP. [Interjections.]

The hon member states that they are going to participate in the democratic process in the new dispensation. [Interjections.] Sir, the hon members ask me all kinds of questions. I wonder whether they should not perhaps rise if they want to ask questions. I appeal to them to do so. We listened carefully and I never interrupted the hon leader of the CP. Sir, we welcome the fact that the CP is going to participate. That is what a good democrat ought to do: If you have lost, you abide by the decision of the majority and fall in with the decisions taken. However, the hon member adds that they will certainly strive—and they are fully entitled to do so—to change the Constitution. Now I want to ask the hon member for Waterberg whether they also accept the authority of the new Constitution. Let me formulate that somewhat differently. If they were to come to power, as they believe they can, would they only change the new Constitution in accordance with the prescriptions it embodies? Do they commit themselves to that?

What did he say?

I could not quite hear what the hon member said. [Interjections.]

We shall act in a parliamentary way.

They therefore accept the authority of the new Constitution. The hon member is saying thereby that as regards the entrenched articles that can only be changed with the consent of all three Houses they, too, will only change them with the consent of all three Houses. I am pleased that the hon member makes that admission, because they are creating the expectation among their supporters that whatever happens, the day after they come to power the Coloured House and the mixed Government they are so opposed to, will be at an end.

You did not hear me say that.

No, but the expectation created by the CP’s propaganda and by many of its supporters in their speeches is that this would be possible. I am pleased about this admission because we now know that after the new system and the entrenched articles have been introduced, they will only be changed within the rules of the new constitution, and that we have his undertaking in that regard.

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

No, the hon members can ask questions at the end of my speech. [Interjections.]

Order! Hon members must now afford the hon the Minister the opportunity to make his speech.

The hon member for Waterberg likes to dissociate himself from the AWB when it suits him. The day after I addressed a meeting at Potgietersrus the AWB—they have done this elsewhere in the campaign as well—held a meeting advertised as a meeting in support of the candidature of the CP candidate in Potgietersrus. The AWB links itself with the CP, and the CP does not dissociate itself from the AWB. Indeed, their candidate in Potgietersrus stated on a public platform that Eugène Terre-’Blanche’s manner has quite an appeal for the youth. He describes him—I do not have his specific words, but they were certainly words to that effect—as a fine, conservative young man. He praises him from a CP platform, but the hon member for Waterberg stands up here and washes his hands of the malpractices championed by the AWB. He pretends that he can dissociate himself from the unconstitutional and undemocratic basis of the AWB, from the militancy and the inflammatory emotional and racist statements of the AWB. Despite challenge after challenge and opportunity after opportunity, however, the hon member for Waterberg has never dissociated himself effectively, clearly and unambiguously, from Mr Eugène Terre’Blanche and his organization. Until he does so, we are entitled to say that a link does exist and that they are part of a family. The mere sharing of the platform at the founding of the Afrikanervolkswag, and the neglect by the hon member for Waterberg to dissociate himself from the bellicose statements of Mr Jaap Marais, are evidence of this. While the hon member for Waterberg denies that he was speaking about war … [Interjections.] I saw the television programme and what I heard, I heard.

You were not in the House when I spoke.

Oh really, Sir, I read the hon member’s speech. He dissociated himself from that slightly in an ambiguous way, but still remained on very friendly terms. [Interjections.] On that occasion the hon member did not dissociate himself from the spirit that manifested itself at that meeting. Indeed, whether the hon member said “oorlog” or “oor horn”—and I shall mention in a moment how this happened—his speech did have overtones of aggression and of a call to the struggle, and the hon member’s speech fitted in beautifully with the overall image that was projected when the Afrikanervolkswag was founded.

Before any mention was made of the hon member having used the word “oorlog”, the NP perused two independently typed transcripts of a tape recording, and subsequently confirmed them by a third independent typed transcript. At least and at best, as far as the hon member is concerned, there is definitely doubt as to whether he said “oorlog” or “oor horn”. That is still a point concerning which the facts are in dispute.

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: Is the hon the Minister not obliged to accept the word of the hon member for Waterberg?

Mr Speaker, the hon member is relying on a transcript, and different transcripts produce different facts. That is the only point I want to make.

Mr Speaker, on a further point of order: The hon member for Waterberg specifically stated that he had said “oor horn”, viz that he was discussing politics. In terms of the rules of the House the hon the Minister must accept his word in that regard. I request your ruling in this connection. [Interjections.]

Order! Is that the answer that the hon the Minister received from the hon member for Waterberg?

Mr Speaker, I am not disputing the word of the hon member for Waterberg. I am merely saying that independent people heard, and typed from a transcript, that the word “oorlog” was used. But if the hon member for Waterberg says that, then I shall never again accuse him of that. I shall never again accuse him of having used the word “oorlog” on that occasion. If he says that he did not say so, then I accept it. However, the fact remains that there is doubt in the minds of the people who heard it. That fact remains unchanged.

I heard the hon member for Waterberg say “oor horn”. [Interjections.]

The hon member for Waterberg then dealt with the participation of the Coloureds in the new dispensation. He said that they were accepting it merely as a springboard. However, the hon member, too, is only taking part because he regards it as a springboard. He told us as much today. The hon members of the PFP are doing the same. Every other participant is taking part with a view to using it as a springboard, and once one is there, one is free and it is one’s objective to state what one believes in. However, I want to put this question to the hon member for Waterberg. Is it the aim of the CP to do away with the House of Representatives and the House of Delegates, even if they refuse to accept independence?

Surely I told you that we would act in a parliamentary way.

Therefore the hon member will not abolish them if they do not wish to be abolished. Thank you very much.

Then the hon member came to the urban Blacks. He singled out one sentence and ascribed a certain point of view to my colleague the hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development. I do not wish to elaborate on that except to say that I do not agree with him and that the standpoint of the NP in regard to this matter is clear and unambiguous. The hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning endorses it. We liberate peoples, not territories, and we are still seeking ways and means to bring every Black people, as a people, to full political realization. As regards the hon member’s own statement as to how they see the matter, the question arises: What are you going to do about the millions of Black people who do not live within the borders of their own national states, but beyond them? Will they abolish local authorities where they have been established? After all, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning has said that they are here and that we must give them certain rights. Are they now going to abolish local authorities for those people?

No.

No. Therefore they accept that within our territory the Black people who do not live in own national states obtain certain significant political rights. Therefore we agree on that. Are they going to seek a linkage? Are they going to give consideration, as we are doing, to really building up this ethnic link as a mechanism, to giving rights to Black people here, rights that they have to exercise in interaction with their various ethnic governments? [Interjections.] Yes, very well, but then the hon member must state in what respect they differ fundamentally from the policy of the NP. What they are doing, and what they are also doing now in Potgietersrus, is to try and create the impression that the NP has accepted a significant change in policy with regard to the Black people, and that is an absolute untruth. What we do say, is that merely to specify a link; merely to say that we liberate peoples, and merely to have theories about that, does not resolve the real problem, the growing problem. Therefore we say, in the first place, that there will always be millions of Black people here, due to our economic interdependence, and because they will be here we must find real ways and means of bringing them, too, to political maturity, in a way that will not amount to domination of any other group. We agree on that as well. The hon member must therefore refrain from behaving as if the NP no longer stands by the policy that the hon member stated, viz the policy that the NP put forward in its 1981 manifesto.

Will they have joint responsibility?

Once again it is the hon member for Waterberg, who, as with the question about a Coloured homeland, deviates from what he supported in 1981. I want to refer the hon member to point 10 of the Twelve Point Plan which he signed with enthusiasm and defended. It read as follows:

After an explanation of how this image, this policy, has been pursued since Dr Ver-woerd, the following is stated, and this the hon member signed:

The hon member told us today that confederation was unnecessary and, moreover, that it was unnecessary to accommodate the urban Blacks in any way whatsoever. Therefore he has changed his policy once again. Why? Because he has new partners and his new partners have always rejected a confederation. Policywise the hon member for Waterberg and his party have now progressed so far that they are standing on exactly the same platform—with one or two exceptions—as the HNP, that he always fought with so much force and vigour.

Then the hon member turned to the pamphlet and said that he had requested this copy because he suspected trickery. I want to ask the hon member from what point he suspected trickery.

Is that relevant?

It is absolutely relevant. When the hon member’s memory should have been fresher, why not then? More than a year ago he could probably remember even more of what he did and what exactly he wrote when he was Deputy Minister than he could a year later, but when it appeared in the Nasionalis he did nothing about it. When it was repeated time and again he did nothing. When his new partners, the HNP, reproduced it in their journal he did nothing about that, but on the eve of a by-election in which he knew that they were losing support, he seized upon this matter as an absolute straw when the people turned their backs due to the CP’s remarks about and insulting of the hon the Prime Minister. After the hon member for Waterberg had said that the hon the Prime Minister was giving our sovereignty away on a plate, the stream away from the CP began to grow stronger. When Dr Connie Mulder said that the hon the Prime Minister, with everything he has done for South Africa, was a traitor, the stream began to flow away from the CP. Then they looked for something Their “tricks department” then said: “Let us look for a trick”—“let us get something to confuse the people”.

A falsification is a trick.

To show that it is part of their “tricks department” …

The hon member for Brakpan speaks about falsification. I want to refer the hon member to the occasion—it has been mentioned in this debate—when their organ took the hon the Prime Minister’s signature from a preface …

Where was the falsification?

Where, then was the falsification in this instance? Every word presented in the handwriting of the hon member for Waterberg there was his own writing.

But the essence was left out.

There is an absolutely direct comparison. The hon the Prime Minister’s signature was taken from a preface and placed under an extract of an article drawn up by Mr M C Botha, and in that way the false impression was created that the hon the Prime Minister had made that statement.

I told the story to this Parliament.

And the hon member did not repudiate it. What did his organ say when he was attacked about this? Did he shout “falsification” then? No, Die Patriot states on the front page of its latest edition:

That is not a forthright, frank disclosure of everything, in the style of the NP. [Interjections.] I say that this sudden indignation as regards something that has already been fully explained by the hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development is an election trick and nothing more.

Oh so!

As the hon members for Waterberg and Durban Point have rightly said, we are rapidly progressing towards the most important phase of the new dispensation, namely implementation. For everyone who is going to participate, this is going to be a difficult process. To find the process of consensus will demand adaptation from White politicians. At the same time it will demand adaptation from Brown and Indian politicians. They will have to adapt to the obligation to accept responsibility for decisions that are sometimes unpopular.

On the eve of the implementation of the new dispensation I wish to sound the warning that success cannot be guaranteed by a constitution or by any other law. Success can only be determined by the way in which everyone uses and utilizes the means to achieve constructive co-operation that are being created in the new Constitution. Confrontation statements, ultimatums and pugnacity will get no one anywhere. Participation can only take place within the rules and the rules can only be changed according to the rules. Every responsible South African must, therefore, realize that if the new dispensation does not succeed, politics in South Africa will become radicalized to the detriment of everyone who seeks reasonable solutions, and then we can expect increasing clashes, tension and conflict. In this regard I want to point out that now, free of the shackles that confined it, without the HNP elements that were in its midst from 1969 to 1982, the NP has a new and purposeful spirit whereby to progress along the road of real and lasting peace and good relations.

The political face of South Africa has changed since the split. Parties such as the NRP have rapidly become irrelevant, because there are only two main schools of throught in White politics. There is the NP, which advocates reform with the assurance of stability and security for every group, and in contrast, the other direction, a negative, radical and often militant new grouping under the hesitant leadership of the hon member for Waterberg, supported by his more strong-arm lieutenants, namely Mr Jaap Marais, Dr Carel Boshoff, Mr Terre-’Blanche and Dr Connie Mulder. That is the other pole of White politics. The real choice lies between group security and co-operation in respect of common interests as expressed by the NP, and confrontation and instability, which will be the result of the bellicose views and the impracticable policy of the CP and their allies. This choice is the really relevant choice, and that applies to the two by-elections tomorrow as well.

However sorry I am for the NRP, and however much I appreciate them, it must be said that they are no longer capable of making a contribution unless they accept the full reality of the NP’s realism, or else—and there are such among them—fall back under the leadership of the hon the Leader of the Opposition and his integration politics. One cannot sit on two stools as far as this matter is concerned.

The CP is taking a dangerous road. There are responsible men among them, too, and I want to appeal to them to turn their backs on the bellicosity of the elements with whose support they are presenting an image of progress at the moment. [Time expired.]

Mr Speaker, I am sure the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs will not expect me to intervene in the fight which he is having with the CP about which party, the NP or the CP, has the most efficient dirty tricks department. I leave them to fight that out among themselves. I do, however, want to make one comment on what he said when he referred to the speech of the hon Leader of the Opposition and pointed out that one of the main reasons for the huge increase in bureaucracy was because of the efforts being made by the Government to upgrade education and to put more children in school. We have no objection to that. That is what we have been asking for all the time, but what the hon the Leader of the Opposition was referring to was the unproductive nature of the work done by so many of the bureaucrats that have been created in the process. Thousands upon thousands of so-called gainfully occupied Whites—something like 38% of all Whites categorized as gainfully occupied—are directly or indirectly employed by the State. We say that thousands of them are engaged in totally unproductive occupations. Everything that is required for the implementation of apartheid, its laws and its regulations, the goaling of thousands of people every year for pass offences, the stamping of permits, allowing or not allowing people to do what are simply normal activities in every other country of the world such as living with one’s family, having one’s wife stay with one, and even employing a domestic employee, require masses of red tape.

Only this last weekend I had an executive of an American company which operates on the East Rand complaining bitterly that he and his firm had been trying for months on end to have 55 houses built for the families of their employees in the new area near Springs, KwaThema. They are prepared to advance the money for that purpose. He said he had encountered nothing but obstruction from the public servants involved. Those are the sort of people to whom the hon the Leader of the Opposition was referring.

Before I come to my main theme this afternoon, which will be an economic one—I also want to refer to the grand tour of the hon the Prime Minister—I want to say a few words to the hon the Minister of Law and Order.

Over the past few weeks we have all heard about this grand tour. It has been significant to my mind that all the raids on the squatters on the Cape Flats ceased while the hon the Prime Minister was touring Europe and meeting European leaders. That showed what I would call a little diplomatic restraint. But of course it is significant that now that he is back and the tour is over the raids are continuing and that several hundred shelters have been pulled down over the past few weeks.

I might mention that the same diplomatic restraint, however, did not operate in South West Africa/Namibia where, as we know, the police arrested 37 members, many of whom were leaders, of the legal internal Swapo party on the eve of the hon the Prime Minister’s visit to the Vatican to have an audience with the Pope. That was hardly an intelligent thing to do. Those people were arrested for breaking a relatively unimportant law. They were having a braaivleis on Catholic Church property. They were offending in terms of the Prohibition and Notification of Public Meetings Act of South West Africa, but they were not arrested under that Act. They were finally charged under that Act and then released under their own recognizances. However, they were arrested under Proclamation AG 9 of 1977, which is equivalent to section 29 of our Internal Security Act, that most draconian Act which allows the police to keep people incommunicado for an indefinite period and in solitary confinement, although in South West Africa that is now ultra vires in terms of a recent Supreme Court decision there.

The hon the Minister professed to know nothing whatever about this. I want to know what investigations he has made about this occurrence apart from writing his letter to the Press accompanied by a very handsome photograph of himself.

It was a good letter too. [Interjections.]

It only makes confusion worse confounded. The hon the Minister claims that he has nothing to do with the police in South West Africa and that he knew nothing about this raid. But the security branch does fall under him. On the admission of the head of the security branch in South West Africa, it was a joint operation between the Commissioner of Police of South West Africa and the security branch of South West Africa, which does fall under the hon the Minister. Why does the hon the Minister not know about these things? Is it just possible that the security branch in South West Africa are members of the HNP and that they conducted this raid in order to embarrass the hon the Prime Minister on the eve of his visit to the Vatican?

I believe the hon the Minister has a duty to have this matter properly investigated. He cannot get away with it merely by writing an angry letter to the Sunday Times professing ignorance and denying any authority. That is one thing he has to do. The other thing that I believe the hon the Minister has to do, other than taking the Bar Council of South West Africa to task, is to investigate some of the allegations that were made in a memorandum which the Bar Council submitted to the Van Dyk Commission. I think he owes that to South Africa, not simply a blanket denial and an angry retort that the Bar Council does not comment on the heinous atrocities committed by Swapo in South West Africa.

The hon the Minister of Defence is not here, but equally I would say to him that he has to investigate the allegations that have been made in court and elsewhere about the treatment of the detainees who were held in the Mariental detainee camp, about which this hon Minister has no responsibility. That is all I want to say about him. I want to come back now to the question of the economy in South Africa and the hon the Prime Minister’s grand tour.

I believe that a sort of convenient amnesia has overtaken this country. The South African public is ever willing to put unpleasant things behind it. The image of the hon the Prime Minister as a bland, statesmanlike character has been projected on TV and on radio over and over again, and now I think everybody believes that the Western World is ready to take South Africa back to its bosom because of the good intentions that the Prime Minister has managed to convey overseas. However, let us get back to a bit of reality. Let the Government down to earth, metaphorically as well as literally, out of that 747 that conveyed the hon the Prime Minister all over Europe.

Let us now look at inflation, enemy number one in South Africa and number one enemy of security. The hon the Minister of Internal Affairs can talk as much as he likes about stability but as long as galloping inflation is eating away at savings, preventing people from accumulating savings, reducing the middle class to the level of the poor and the poor to a desperate fight for survival, there can be no talk of stability in South Africa. I might say that many a government has perished as a result of inflation. As the American historian Theodore White has commented:

Maybe the Government had better worry about that.

The second great problem that no amount of jaunting around the world is going to obscure, is the presence of widespread and abject poverty in a country of great affluence. The highly visible comparable standards of living, particularly in the urban areas, between Black and white, I believe is a prime recipe for social unrest. The poor quality of life among Blacks, Coloureds and Asians has been starkly revealed by the many studies that have been done of the poverty datum line, about which my hon Leader has already said a great deal.

This dismal picture is made worse because it is accompanied by a massive problem of unemployment in South Africa. In Johannesburg alone it is estimated that approximately 400 000 Blacks are unemployed and, worst of all, at the Carnegie Conference on Poverty, Dr Webster stated that 50% of the unemployed Blacks are under 30 years of age and more than 25% have never had a job at all.

I do not intend saying very much about rural poverty because everybody know about the dire straits of the poverty-stricken, so-called homelands and national states, independent and otherwise. There too the hon Leader of the Opposition has mentioned some very important statistics. As a matter of fact, many families are living on the old age pension of one member of the family. The other thing they live on is the deferred pay or pay sent home by people who are working in the so-called White areas of the Republic; in other words, the migrant labour system is on the increase in South Africa, which in turn is leading to a burgeoning of the population explosion. I do not know how many members have bothered to look at the report of the Science Committee of the President’s Council on Demographic Trends in South Africa, which reveals the future picture in all its stark detail. In 1980 the fertility rate was 2,70 for Asians, 3,29 for Coloureds, 2,03 for Whites and 5,3 for Blacks. By the year 2000 South Africa will have 1,1 million Asians, 3,8 million Coloureds, 5,3 million Whites and 36,4 million Blacks, giving a total of 46,6 million. It is not a question of colour here, but of the poorest section of the community producing the greatest population explosion. This is something that can only be remedied by raising the socio-economic level of that section of the population. Family planning is a useful addition but it has no real effect. The only effective way of stopping the population explosion among the poorest section, is to improve their socioeconomic situation. That requires an all-out effort to improve education, training and housing, as well as to create jobs. Something, belatedly, is being done about education and training, but the housing situation among Blacks, particularly, is absolutely critical. Very little has been done to cope with the crisis situation reported by the Viljoen Committee a couple of years ago when it told us that there was a shortage of 168 000 houses for Blacks in South Africa of which 35 000 were in Soweto. Fewer than 3 000 houses have been built in Soweto over the past three years, and that does not even begin to cope with the natural increase of the population which requires 4 000 houses to be built in Soweto per annum. 23 000 families are accommodated, if one can use that word, in backyard shacks. We have had lots of headlines about plans for 15 000 houses etc, but very few houses are being built. It is clear that the State has abdicated its responsibility to provide those people with the most elementary need of human beings, namely shelter. The National Housing Commission will only build houses for households with an income of less than R150 per month. Anybody who has an income of higher than that abysmally low figure has to fend for himself. Therefore hundreds of thousands of people have to go on living in overcrowded houses or shacks without any amenities.

As for job creation, the Government relies on decentralization or deconcentration which has the effect of detracting from the effort to maximize employment opportunities in the economy as a whole. It replaces jobs that should be provided in the metropolitan areas, with jobs in the rural areas, at much greater cost. Far fewer jobs have been provided in the process as a result.

I want to conclude by expressing the hope that the hon the Prime Minister has at least learnt what we have said from these benches about forced removals and the lack of due process being the two most important factors that create disgust overseas about South Africa is true. I want to say that another Ma-gopa or more removals of that kind will be just the thing to provide the last incentive to pass the punitive measures presently before the American Senate. If the fact has been brought home to the hon the Prime Minister that there is no exaggeration when we talk about the consequences of forced removals then I for one say that all the money that was spent on the grand tour of the Prime Minister and his entourage will be money well spent.

Mr Speaker, the hon member for Houghton spoke on inflation and how it is to be dealt with. She spoke on poverty in a country of affluence. She said we must fight inflation and unemployment, but in the fight against inflation one very often creates unemployment.

That is a simplistic view for simple people.

No, it has happened in all the countries that took on the fight against inflation. It happened in Europe, in America and everywhere. The hon member also spoke about the low incomes of the Blacks. We know that the income level of Blacks is low, but how does it compare with the income level of Blacks in the rest of Africa? The hon the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications a little while ago remarked here that 70% of the people on the waiting list for telephones in this country are Blacks and Coloureds. That shows that the situation is today better than it was before. Training, housing and job creation are asked for, but at the same time the hon the Minister of Finance is accused of not curtailing State expenditure. How on earth can one do all these things and still not spend more money?

The hon member for Yeoville yesterday spoke about, and actually frequently talks about, the so-called mismanagement of the South African economy and blames the Government and in particular the Minister of Finance for all of the problems besetting South Africa. However, the hon member is playing politics. He knows as well as I do that the problems facing the South African economy are not problems that are restricted to South Africa alone but are problems experienced throughout the world. Has he not heard of the trade cycle that is affecting the economy throughout the world?

At the Tenth Western Economic Summit in London last month, the United States, Germany, Canada, Japan, Britain, France and Italy, those seven, discussed the most important economic problems and issued a joint declaration of intent. I want to quote from this declaration of intent because from it one can gather what the problems are besetting the economies of those countries and the economy of the world. This declaration of intent is summarized as follows:

That, more or less, is what the hon member for Houghton asked for just now. You see, Sir, it is not only a South African problem; it is a world problem. The document goes on to say:

Which country spends more per capita on these programmes than South Africa? It goes on to say:

*When I look at this declaration, it seems to me that the world is in a bad way, that the major countries of the world are in a bad way and that they have enormous problems. Then it also seems to me that our South African problems are largely a projection of those problems that are being experienced on the international level. We have become part of the international economic world. With our particular circumstances, and participating as we do in world trade, which is a combination of the First and Third Worlds, something which is also frequently overlooked by the hon the Leader of the Opposition—he totally ignored it in his argument this afternoon—how can we escape world tendencies? How can we escape world tendencies if we form part of an international economic system? Of course we are wrestling with problems such as inflation, high interest rates and budgetary deficits. Of course it is a problem to create work for all people, especially when we look at the high rate of population growth.

However, it is not as though we were not doing anything about it. After all, the Government has launched several anti-inflation campaigns, job creation projects, and so on. The hon member for Yeoville identifies problems in a masterly way; he identified “13 economic plagues which beset South Africa at this moment” for us. As usual, however—and this is what we have come to expect of him—he did not offer any solutions. He identifies the problems—we can do this ourselves and we have in fact done so—but he does not offer any solutions. In his whole speech—I read it—there was not a single suggestion in this connection.

In the course of his speech, the hon the member for Yeoville also said:

This is not true, of course. I now want to ask the hon member for Yeoville and the official Opposition—one of his colleagues must please tell us this—on which Votes we should cut back even further. Should we spend less money on agriculture? If so, they should please tell us. Should we spend less money on education? Should we spend less money on defence, foreign affairs, water affairs or housing? The hon member complained that we were not building enough houses. However, they also say that we are spending too much, that we are not tightening our belt. The hon the Leader of the Opposition said this afternoon: “Any policy to solve South Africa’s problems will cost money.” We are solving South Africa’s problems and it is indeed costing money. However, it seems to me, after listening to the hon the Leader of the Opposition this afternoon, that he is preaching a kind of neo-colonialism. We should go and do the job for those states. Then it will be much cheaper. That is what it amounts to. We should go there and do the jobs ourselves, as in the old days, when everything was arranged from Mother England.

The hon members of the Opposition should tell us whether we should abandon our decentralization policy. They should tell us whether we should abandon the task of developing the underdeveloped areas, the Black states and South West Africa. Should we stop importing maize? Should we stop paying a subsidy on bread? These are all ways in which we could save a great deal of money. They should tell us which of these things we should do. However, they do not come up with any proposals. While the hon the Minister is being criticized on the one hand for failing to cut back on expenditure, he is being accused, on the other hand, of not making adequate provision for the financing of the new dispensation. This specific accusation has been made. “He has not provided for the new dispensation,” they have said. I do not understand the Opposition. That is the reason why so many more people are sitting on this side of the House than on that side of the House.

Since blue books are the order of the day at the moment, I also want to talk about a blue book, about a different blue book. I want to talk about the blue book which contains the speech of the president of the AHI. I have never assumed that just because the AHI traditionally co-operates very closely with the Government, and because its members are mostly Government supporters, it should give its uncritical approbation to everything which it considers wrong in the system. It is the right of the AHI and of its president to have their own opinion of matters and to voice that opinion. However, some people see only the negative side of certain statements and not the positive side as well. Therefore we should perhaps examine this controversial speech by the president of the AHI. The hon member for Sunnyside said that he had applauded at the end of the president’s speech. However, I want to quote to the hon member, in case he has forgotten, some of the things that the president of the AHI said. Did he applaud the following statement as well? The president of the AHI said:

He then went on to say, and I want the hon member for Sunnyside to listen carefully:

I suppose the hon member applauded this statement as well. [Interjections.] What is more, the president went on to say:

We know to whom he is referring, after all—

This is one of the statements which the hon member applauded. I agree with the president. This is a man who has purposefully pursued the policies of the NP, even at the risk of losing the fearful and the faint-hearted people in his own party.

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

No, Sir, I do not feel like answering questions now.

I find it interesting to read the following in an overseas magazine which is not very well disposed towards us:

This was written before the hon the Prime Minister went overseas. It is strange that the chancellor who was so willing to receive him should have left the hon the Prime Minister out in the cold and should have given him a chilly reception, as the hon member for Lichtenburg tried to tell us yesterday.

I am sorry that the hon member for Lichtenburg is not here at the moment, because there is something which I should like to ask him personally. Why does the hon member for Lichtenburg hate the hon the Prime Minister so much? There was nothing but hate in the speech which the hon member made yesterday. He quoted from hostile newspapers. I found it curious yesterday, when I made a note of it, that the hon member was not heeding the warnings of his own leader because it was his leader, after all, who said:

That was the warning which was sounded by his leader, after all, This surprised me yesterday, but this afternoon it no longer surprises me, because the hon leader himself is no longer acting in accordance with his own statements. [Interjections.]

“Ons staan op die drumpel van ’n splinternuwe bedeling,” the president of the AHI said, and then he said that he would like to quote W E G Louw:

It is the Nationalist to whom he is referring here.

On the other hand, there are the fearful and faint-hearted ones, those who attach more importance to temporary gain and the approval of others who may be equally fearful and lacking in faith. They are the overcautious ones, who would rather not embark on any venture and whose biggest fear is having to take a decision, and who therefore work to preserve a world with all its manifest injustice and imperfection, rather than to risk taking one courageous step forward.

Who are they?

It is the CP that wishes to cling to the past and to move further back into the past. We should take note of certain statements. Unfortunately, my time has expired, but I want to refer to only one more point. We should take note of what the leader of the CP has said about the sport policy, according to a report which appeared this morning. He wants to go back to a period before the Vorster era.

Mr Speaker, I only want to comment on certain of the statements the hon the Deputy Minister of Agriculture made, which I think justify comment.

He accused the hon the Leader of the Opposition and the hon member for Yeoville of only stating problems and not coming up with answers. If that is true, it seems to me that it is a question of the pot calling the kettle black. The hon the Deputy Minister also sketched the problems in regard to inflation and our trading partners, but we are still waiting for him to propose a solution to these problems. Furthermore, the hon the Minister of Finance and the hon the Deputy Minister of Finance owe us a reply concerning why our trading partners have succeeded in getting their inflation rate to be so low. [Interjections.]

In addition, the hon the Deputy Minister of Agriculture pointed out that wages in South Africa may be low, but he said that cognizance should be taken of how they compare with the rest of Africa. I am surprised that someone with the status of the Deputy Minister could make such a stupid statement, to compare countries in Africa, which conduct a subsistence economy, with a country like South Africa, which is relatively highly industrialized. I am dumbfounded. One could just as well ask how the per capita of Blacks in South Africa compares with that of Blacks in America, but the hon the Deputy Minister would tell me at once that that is not a comparable situation.

South Africa has a component of the Third World.

Surely South Africa is not part of the Third World. The hon the Deputy Minister must not try to compare the incomparable. That would be foolish. [Interjections.] It looks as if the hon the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications does not understand me so well. Does he wish to put a question to me?

Why has the country developed to such an extent if we are so bad?

I did not say the country was bad. I am merely commenting on the statements of the hon the Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

The hon the Deputy Minister asked us to tell him where we should save and cut down. The hon member for Houghton has already given an indication of that. If I could get the hon the Deputy Minister so far as to see how many people are involved in the implementation of all the measures of differentiation and discrimination applied to the non-White population groups in South Africa, that would at least be a start. Cognizance should not only be taken of their salaries and whatever is linked to that, and of their accommodation, but one must also look at the thousands of Blacks who appear in the courts annually and who land up in our jails because of pass law offences. Savings could begin here, and a tremendous saving could be effected here. [Interjections.] I shall leave the matter at that.

I really want to refer to a number of constitutional matters in view of the speeches of the hon the Minister of Health and Welfare, the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, as well as the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs. One thing has become clear, particularly during the past year, and that is that the Government has admitted that the dominant problem in South Africa is that of the accommodation of the political aspirations of the Black people in our country. One is grateful for that admission. If one looks back at the end of this era, in view of the question the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning put earlier as well, the dominant characteristic is that we have come to the end of this era without having succeeded in really finding a solution to this fundamental problem. That is the dominant element.

The hon the Minister of Health and Welfare—it is a pity that he is not present here now—brought three fundamental aspects to the fore. The first is that the fundamental problem of South Africa for all of us lies in the search for a satisfactory arrangement with regard to the political rights of Blacks. The second statement he made, and which the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, as well as some of his other hon colleagues make regularly, is that the only way in which we can recognize the principle of the protection of the rights of minorities in our plural society is by doing so on a group basis and by structuring our constitution on a group basis. The third aspect, particularly in view of the hon the Prime Minister’s overseas visit, is that it has become clear that the path of South Africa and the greater acceptability of South Africa in the outside world lies through Africa. Apart from the second statement I mentioned, one can certainly find no fault with the first and third statements.

I want to refer to the repeated statement by the hon the Leader of the Opposition that the Blacks will have to be accommodated—the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs conceded that here this afternoon as well—but by removing the fear of dominance of one group by another, as well as by protecting the rights of minorities. In that regard I want to point out—the hon member for Pinelands has also referred to this—that the statement of the hon the Minister of Health and Welfare that PFP policy is based on the principle of Black majority government is not correct. What is also not correct is the hon the Minister’s statement that the PFP has not repeatedly stated its own standpoint, and that its policy, when implemented properly, would not in fact afford the necessary protection to the rights of minorities. In this regard it is abundantly clear—we readily concede that to the Government—that one cannot protect the rights of minorities by way of a section in an Act. They can only be protected effectively when the structure of the constitution itself makes such dominance of one group by another impossible. The first method does not work. We have in fact seen how that point became apparent in respect of the NP Government when, despite the protection in the old South African Act with regard to the political rights of Coloureds in the Cape Province, it later appeared that that protection was not sufficient to prevent them from being deprived of their political rights in the Cape Province. It is therefore no use seeking an answer in the form of a section in an Act. An answer should rather be sought in the structure of the constitution itself.

If one looks at what the hon the Minister of Constitutional Development and Planning, the hon the Minister of Co-operation and Development, as well as the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs had to say, and if one looks at what appears in the annual report of the Department of Constitutional Development and Planning, surely it is abundantly clear that the major debate in this House and in our country will have to be conducted on the political future of the Black man. It seems to me that these are the fundamental points about which we will have to gain clarity.

If we want to conduct a meaningful debate about this, there are three basic premises we must assume as being common to the Government and the PFP. One of these is that the creation of independent Black states—independent Black peoples, if that designation is preferable—does not solve the problem of political rights for Blacks. It may possibly satisfy the political expectations of a section of that population, but certainly not those of everyone. If we were to adopt that as a premise, we would be making progress. Secondly, the existence of the national states, even though the people there have a large degree of self-determination, does not solve this problem either because, firstly, the national states are still subordinate to this Parliament as regards those matters that have not yet been entrusted to them. They are therefore not completely sovereignly independent because they are still subject to decisions of this Parliament. Secondly, the people in the national states have never accepted that with the establishment of the national states they have given up their birthright as South Africans. We must therefore assume that the creation of the national states does not provide a solution to the problem either.

Thirdly, the solution to the problem of the Black man’s political rights cannot be found in depriving them of their civil rights either, as has happened time and again. Nor does the solution lie in the political say of Black people in the independent states or in the national states, and it is interesting that the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs conceded that here this afternoon when he said that the complete answer did not lie in linking up.

If we can accept all these things, we have gone a long way, since if we can accept that as a basis, a real debate between the Government and the Opposition in South Africa is possible, since we would know that we should seek alternative accommodation patterns, particularly for those people who have settled permanently outside the national states.

I am pleased that the hon the Minister of Internal Affairs admitted by implication this afternoon that the Black local authorities we have created—important as they may be—do not provide an answer to the problem of the political rights of Black people who reside permanently outside the national states either. This is really obvious, since the Black local authorities operate in a particular environment, and that means that as local authorities they cannot meet the needs of the Black people, nor do they have the power to eliminate the really vexed problems with which the Black people in the urban areas have to contend, since it is still the Development Boards and other institutions which control the daily lives of those Black people, as we read every day. Besides, we as Whites would not have been satisfied if we only had local authorities through which to exercise our political rights.

Therefore, if we adopt these premises, there can be debate. I must add, however, that other instruments apart from the Cabinet Committee—however important it may be—should be created through which these people can be given a say in the question of how we should effect that accommodation. It is no use the Government appointing a body such as a Cabinet Committee and saying that people should give evidence before it. If the Government accepts the basic arguments I have advanced, they should create other instruments whereby White and black will be given a say.

In the limited time I still have at my disposal, I just want to make a few remarks about the question of Africa and the statements of the hon the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health and Welfare. It has become commonplace to say that our future lies through Africa. That is quite correct, but we should have no illusions, however. If we want Africa to assist us in creating a different image of South Africa abroad, the first requirement is that we should place our own Black people in a position in which they also accept the system existing in South Africa as their own. That is the first requirement. In this regard it is very clear that we will never be able to satisfy the rest of Africa if we have not guaranteed the satisfaction of our own Black people. The first requirement in achieving this is simply that not only should all statutory discrimination be removed, but that the hundred and one differentiating measures to which Black people in South Africa are subject and which do not apply to Whites, should be amended or repealed. As long as we continue treating Black people on a different basis to Whites, we can never hope that people in Africa will be prepared to accept South Africa and the Government of South Africa as an inherent part of Africa.

Mr Speaker, the hon nominated member Prof Olivier says he welcomes the fact that in the debate today members on the Government side acknowledged that the policy of having ties with the homelands was not the complete answer. The hon member ought to have made this deduction a long time ago in the light of the fact that a Cabinet Committee was appointed to investigate the position of the urban Black people. The hon member wants to conduct a debate with us, but has he ever taken the opportunity of looking at his own position? We cannot conduct a meaningful debate with the Opposition if those hon members are not prepared to accept the fact that with the establishment of the independent and national states a certain pattern developed and that they occupy a very important position in the constitutional development of the Black people. The Government accepts that the urban Black people create a problem. Those hon members, however, want nothing to do with the policy of separate development in the form of individual independent states and national states. Today the hon the Leader of the Opposition again made the same mistake that has previously been made by launching an attack on the leaders of the national states. He mentioned the Sebes and the President of Venda as examples of people who amounted to nothing at all. He said they were “stupid” and simple and did not know how to govern their countries. In stating his party’s policy, however, he says that these people should share a common voters’ roll with us. Then they are not stupid, nor under the influence of strange people. Then they do not have a public service that has to be kept going artificially. The hon leader says we are not engaged in true reform, because true reform is only possible when we have all these people on a common voters’ roll.

The hon nominated member Prof Olivier has just said in his speech that Black majority government was not PFP policy. The hon the Leader of the Opposition also denied this during the speech by the Leader of the NP in the Free State. What is the actual position? The hon gentleman did, after all, make a video film last year during the referendum campaign. That film was shown to the Press. They invited the people to watch the film and Pat Rogers asked him questions. One question was:

The hon the Leader of the Opposition replied:

[Interjections.] In Die Burger I found a report—I looked in other newspapers, but could not find it there—about a speech that the hon member for Houghton made during the referendum campaign last year. What I want to quote is something she has never denied. The report appeared in Die Burger of Tuesday, 4 October 1983. The hon member was addressing the political student organization Polstu of the Rand Afrikaans University. What, amongst other things, did she say there? I quote:

[Interjections.] Now the hon members of the PFP are saying that that is not their policy. As long as it is their policy, they will never be able to make any meaningful contribution to solving the question of ethnic relations in South Africa. The hon member Prof Olivier must not give us any lessons on this, but should talk to his own political party. The moment they see things in a new light we shall be able to solve the problems of South Africa.

Let us, in the minute or two that are left, look for a moment at the constitutional development and how we are giving substance to it. Although the NP has an indisputable mandate to establish individual citizenship for each group, to guarantee the freedom of all peoples and to permit no domination in South Africa, we realize that all this must take place on the basis of a politics of negotiation. We prefer consensus to conflict. That is why individual leadership for each group is essential in the politics of negotiation. By way of negotiation each group is given a greater say, and thus also participation, in the decision-making process. Each group in South Africa uses its own interests as a springboard and negotiating platform to ensure a place for itself. That is its powerbase, just as the interests of the Whites constitute our power-base.

For each group in South Africa, however, there are certain non-negotiables. At this level there may be large-scale disagreement. Yet there is also a great deal of agreement and a great number of common interests. For each group in South Africa—White, Coloured or Black—there are certain non-negotiables. Firstly, we all want to do away with unfair and unjust discrimination. We do not want any domination of one group by another. We all want each group in South Africa to get what it expects from life. We all realize that we must constantly promote economic co-operation and mutual dependence in South Africa. The biggest single question, however, is: Who must speak and negotiate on my behalf? That is where we have a problem with the PFP. All the structures we create in order to have round table discussions with the Black people are opposed by them at each and every occasion. When those people elect their leaders we find, as has happened in this debate, that they are insulted and ridiculed.