Mr. Speaker, as regards the business of the House for next week, I wish to inform hon. members that the Co-operation and Development Vote will be discussed on Monday, 31 August. The Post Office budget speech will be delivered on Tuesday, 1 September, and the debate on this measure will commence on Wednesday, 2 September. On Friday, 4 September, the Mineral and Energy Affairs Vote will be discussed. If time allows, the House will continue to deal with the legislation on the Order Paper.

Mr. Speaker, with your permission I should like to ask the hon. the Prime Minister whether he is prepared to make a statement on reports concerning South Africa’s military involvement in Angola. I put this question as an ordinary member of the public who knows nothing more and nothing less than anybody else who has read about it in our news media. I think the hon. the Prime Minister will agree that it is undesirable to have speculations circulating about large-scale military involvement by the South African Government.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition asked me at lunch-time to make a statement, and I do so gladly.

In recent times the Government of South Africa has consistently addressed serious appeals to our neighbouring states and other African countries for their co-operation in striving for and achieving peaceful economic prosperity, welfare and stability for all. At the same time this Government has also warned these countries and requested them not to shelter the communist-backed terrorists who take action against SWA/Namibia and the RSA or to allow them to operate against us from the territories of our neighbouring States.

As regards the spate of allegations from Angola, it must be made very clear that these reports of a large-scale invasion of Angola are not only exaggerated but also a complete misrepresentation of the true state of affairs.

The territorial force of South West Africa, supported by units of the S.A. Defence Force, is continually engaged in combating terrorism and protecting the local population, particularly in Ovambo, against deeds of terrorism. From this it follows as a matter of course that we cannot simply sit and wait on our side of the border until the terrorists cross the border in order to commit murders, lay land-mines and intimidate people. Moreover, we shall not stop our pursuit operations when these anarchists flee across the border. The so-called invasion to which the Angolan authorities refer was just another of these operations which would have taken place without incident were it not for the fact that the MPLA interfered, as it has been doing in the recent past. However, the security forces were prepared for such interference and defended themselves successfully and at the same time managed to mop up several terrorist positions and arms caches.

I trust that the MPLA Government will now heed our request not to interfere, as well as our ideal to live in peace with our neighbours, and will stop getting involved in operations which are not directed against them but against terrorism. We also hope they will accede to our requests to enter into talks with us. I also trust that the Angolese will not make further use of this opportunity in another endeavour to lay all the actions of organizations such as Unita in Southern Angola at South Africa’s door. The Government is fully aware of the fact that the UN is holding a special session on 3 September, and it is obvious that this date has a serious influence on the intensity of reporting and allegations from Angola, and consequently the present over-reaction on the part of Angola is completely in line with the spate of allegations made against South West Africa and the RSA, particularly during the past 14 days. South Africa evidently remains the easy scapegoat to be blamed for Angola’s inability to keep its own house in order.

Mr. Chairman, there are still a few matters I should like to dispose of, as was agreed. I wish to begin by extending my sincere thanks for their contributions to those hon. members on the Government side who participated in the debate. I also wish to give them the assurance that I greatly appreciate every one of their contributions.

The hon. member for Aliwal addressed a request to me. He asked that in future salary adjustments for public servants there should be a deviation from the principle of a percentage adjustment, and by that he meant that the officials in the top structures should receive a smaller percentage and those in the lower ranks a greater percentage. All I can tell the hon. member is that this is in fact already being done. The 1 April 1981 increases were made on this basis.

I should now like to refer in passing to a report in the afternoon newspaper here in Cape Town, which dealt with yesterday’s proceedings in this House. I wish to read the introductory paragraph and the headline of the report on what happened in the debate. The headline reads—

The report then begins as follows—

All I wish to say about this report is that it is the lowest form of propaganda.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon. the Prime Minister permitted to refer to a newspaper report on a debate while that debate is still proceeding?

Order! The hon. the Prime Minister may proceed.

Sir, I can understand that the hon. member for Groote Schuur would like this distorted image to be bruited abroad, because it suits his purpose. All I can say about this kind of reporting is that it gives a false impression of yesterday’s proceedings. This is not reporting, but flagrant, premeditated misrepresentation. It is a sly way of passing off comment as facts to the public. This is all one can expect from such a newspaper as this which, as we all know, is deteriorating rapidly under its present editorship.

The day before yesterday the hon. member for Sea Point had quite a lot to say about squatters who were allegedly being dumped. In the first place I wish to point out that this particular squatting did not take place with the approval of the Transkei. In the second place there has been continuous contact at the highest level between the South African Government and the Transkei Government since these incidents began. In the third place, this squatting in the proportions it assumed, would not have taken place if it had not been organized and orchestrated by elements that wish to use the plight of the squatters to achieve other objectives. We have evidence in our possession that certain sums of money are even being paid out. I am not going to elaborate on the investigations now; investigations will be carried out. There is evidence that certain amounts of money were paid out by certain bodies, and they were rather large amounts too.

It pays to be a squatter!

Yes, sometimes it does pay to be a squatter. Surely the hon. member for Bryanston knows that. What I also wish to say is that it is no solution to squatting to encourage people to offer their services in large numbers where there is no work and no housing. We do not want the situation which is developing in certain South American States and we do not want the conditions which have become a common phenomenon in certain parts of Africa. We shall not tolerate such conditions, not around our cities, conditions which are not in the interests of White South Africa, nor in the interests of Black South Africa, nor in the interests of the Coloureds.

You want rural slums.

That hon. member can buy disposable nappies and put them on himself! [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Sea Point made an extremely unrestrained speech about our relations with the Black States. I have his Hansard here. I do not wish to do him an injustice but it is clear from this speech that the hon. member for Sea Point wished to create only one impression and that was that this Government’s entire behaviour was aimed at keeping those Black States which were becoming independent in a state of subservience in the economic field, and at not giving them the opportunity to develop, so that it could dominate them from its commanding position. Let us consider a few facts which are rather interesting. We had our problems with the Transkei. There were times when we were less well disposed towards one another and times when matters improved. If we consider the position since 1977 we find that for the first three years after 1977 the statutory amounts accruing to the Transkei totalled R113 million per annum. The amount paid over to them from general taxes rose from R8,2 million in 1977 …

I dealt with all that.

… to R13,4 million. I am speaking now and I will give the facts. The hon. member must not interrupt me. He will hear the facts in a moment. Although he will not understand them I shall give them now for the sake of the other hon. members.

You are emphasizing the point that I made.

From the Customs Union—because this is where trade comes in—the increase in contributions they received was from R40 million in 1977 to R119 million in 1980-’81. But the hon. member says we do not allow them to trade. He says we do not allow them to trade and we do not allow them to develop so that they can trade. These are the irresponsible stories he noises abroad. I say he ought to be ashamed of himself. Transkei gets much better treatment from us than Lesotho got from Britain. The ruler of Lesotho once said that the only thing the British left him was a flag. From the Rand Monetary Union they get more or less R3,2 million. Other technical aid amounts to hundreds of thousands of rands. Project aid for the rest of this year totals R53 million and then he tells us here that we are trying to keep these countries indigent so that we can suppress them. Surely this is not the truth and it is certainly not true in the light of the plans we have announced for the future if those countries want to co-operate with us to share in the distribution of wealth in South Africa. Why does the hon. member talk such rubbish here in this House?

If one considers Bophuthatswana and one takes into consideration the statutory amounts of R22 million over a period of three years and the bread subsidy will observe that compensation amounting to millions of rand has gone to them. The hon. member for Sea Point is shaking his head.

I referred to R910 million …

Then there is project aid as well. In the past two years R16 million and R28,5 million was spent on that. From the Customs Union the amount rose from R71 million to R128 million.

It sounds as if they are very independent.

But they are supposed to be part of the greater economy in Southern Africa. Does the hon. member not want this?

Contributions to Venda rose from R62 million in 1980 to R91 million in 1981.

50% in one year.

Yes, by 50% in one year. Now the hon. member for Sea Point is staring at a point in space. I suppose he is looking to see if McHenry is in the gallery. [Interjections.] The hon. member must not say such irresponsible things here and then still expect us to take notice of him.

Several other questions were put to me. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred in passing to the question of land. I think he also referred to it during the censure debate. From the NRP ranks in particular we had a very sensible speech yesterday from the hon. member for King William’s Town.

A different tone?

Of course. The hon. member for King William’s Town acted in a far more responsible way than the hon. member for Pinelands has ever acted in his life. [Interjections.] But he is a patriot, a South African.

What is the implication? [Interjections.]

Questions about land were put to me. We, the State, have an obligation under the 1936 Act to add certain quantities of land, which have been divided into quotas, to the national States. This was followed by the 1975 proposals in which our approach to this matter was specified. After I became Prime Minister,

however, I enlisted the aid of the Cabinet in causing certain steps to be taken for a very thorough investigation to be made under the chairmanship of the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt into the entire question of land and everything in connection with it. For the first time in the history of South Africa we now have a complete picture of all the implications. After the Van der Walt Commission had reported to the Government, the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development issued a statement on 28 October 1980 on behalf of the Government. I am not going to read it out here today, because the hon. members have it at their disposal. In it he spelled out clearly and distinctly how the Government is going to approach this matter in future. All I wish to do now in this connection is to refer to page 3 of the statement. I think the hon. the Leader of the Opposition has it in front of him. It reads—

This is the procedure, apart from what the Minister also had to say in the rest of his statement. In this connection I wish to say only one more thing. In consequence of these guidelines which were laid down on 28 October 1980 and which were based, inter alia, on recommendations of the Commission of Co-operation and Development and of bodies such as the Constellation Committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Gerhard de Kock, it was necessary for the Van der Walt Commission to take another look at the proposals because there were other factors of equal importance which emerged. There were, inter alia, economic factors. Further aspects involving principle were cleared up with the Cabinet. This means that the entire negotiation process in respect of the Ciskei was speeded up so that the Government can make available a complete picture of the consolidation plan for that area before the Ciskei becomes independent on 4 December 1981. In other words, before independence is gained, the consolidation plans will be made known, as approved by the Cabinet for submission to Parliament. The groundwork has now been done for putting into effect the aims of the Government, namely to dispose of the reports of the Commission of Co-operation and Development before 30 June 1980 and to finalize the execution of the independent and national States’ consolidation plans, as in the case of the Transkei, as quickly as possible so that within the next 12 months the public can be given a clear picture of what the situation will be in order to bring clarity and certainty concerning consolidation. As soon as possible after the proposals have been finalized, they will be submitted to Parliament as a series. This is as far as we have gone in this matter.

Allow me to make one further remark. Over 35% of the surface area of the RSA receives 500 mm or more of rain per annum. The Black States receive 76% of this, in other words, of the parts which receive 500 mm or more of rain per annum. This is some of the best land for agricultural and other purposes and it is situated in those States. When we discuss land ratios with overseas countries, we must be honest enough to tell them that the Cape, which comprises almost two-thirds of the Republic of South Africa, is largely desert and semi-desert. Why do we not mention these facts? Why do we create the impression that a maldistribution of land is taking place here to the detriment of the Black people? These are facts which cannot be denied. Of the total agricultural potential of the Republic of South Africa 23% is situated in the Black States, and 12% of the total surface area of the Republic can be cultivated whereas a very high percentage of the Black States can be cultivated. Britain was prepared to give Lesotho its independence but if one compares the potential of Lesotho with that of some of our Black States there is no comparison. Yet when Britain did that it was an angelic act, but when South Africa does the same thing, it is impoverishing them. What kind of unbalanced thinking is that! [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Pinelands made a speech here yesterday which interested me. He actually began a theological discussion here and during his sermon he also referred to me in passing.

That was the most important part of my speech.

I must say I never thought that when one delivers a sermon one talks politics. The hon. member referred to speeches I had made in the past. I made a speech in Upington on 28 July 1979. I have it here. I made a speech at Ulundi on 7 August 1979. I have that here as well. I also made a speech in the City Hall of Cape Town on 8 March 1980. May I say that there is not a single phrase or word in those speeches which I am not prepared to repeat today or tomorrow. Let us understand one another. If the hon. member is therefore trying to create the impression that I have suddenly done an about-face or have changed my standpoint I want to tell him he is barking up the wrong tree.

But I have not finished with the hon. member for Pinelands yet. He wanted to have a theological discussion with me. I have no desire to have a theological discussion and in any case I am not qualified to do so. But I also read my Bible, and I should now like to quote two texts to him, which he can mull over since we are now at this level. I do this with the greatest respect and not derisively. In the first place I want to read to him a passage from Matthew 6:1-2—

The other is from Matthew 21:12—

The hon. member as a theologist would do well to ponder this and examine his own conscience.

The hon. member asked me whether I also wished to take other people who opposed communism with me. The answer is yes. Under my guidance, my personal guidance, Coloureds and Blacks are fighting communism in the armed forces.

Then give them a share in your country.

But they are fighting for that part which is guaranteed to them because we are fighting communism. They are fighting to retain their traditions and the good things in their lives. However, they know that if communism wins, the hon. member for Pinelands will not be able to defend them. He will probably do the same as that person who, during some situation of unrest or other said: “Do not hit me. I am English”. [Interjections.]

I should like to tell the hon. member for Pinelands one thing this afternoon. We have maintained and developed sound relations and co-operation between the State and the private sector, as have never existed before in this country. I have a cutting here and the hon. member can read it for himself. In this, so it seems to me, the person who is speaking is also disillusioned with that mob he helped to establish. I refer here to a speech made recently by Mr. Harry Oppenheimer, on 16 July this year. Mr. Harry Oppenheimer is not an enthusiastic friend of this Government. He never has been and I do not think he will ever be. But at least he is honest. Listen to what he had to say—

In that last consideration there is, I believe, real ground for optimism.

He went on to say—

He is voicing his confidence. He does not indulge in groundless gossip-mongering as his creatures do. [Interjections.] And this is why I say …

Do you believe in power-sharing then?

No. Do not talk nonsense. The things we said we would reform are the things we are busy with. But there is one thing I should like to say to the hon. member for Pinelands this afternoon. He can wait until doomsday if he thinks I intend to implement PFP policy in South Africa. [Interjections.] In the second place I wish to tell the hon. member for Pinelands that we have overhauled the system of administration in this country, and there is evidence to prove that it is working. We have improved the country’s administrative machinery in many ways. We have also subjected facets of our national life in regard to which there was misunderstanding and strife to expert investigation. We were not afraid to refer the country’s security acts to a judicial commission under the direction of one of this country’s judges of appeal, and we are awaiting his report.

We referred the question of relations with the Press to a commission under the leadership of an eminent judge.

You are not referring to Kowie, are you?

No, it is not … [Interjections.] Good Heavens, yes. You know, Mr. Chairman, that hon. member and I are neither of us getting any younger, but when I look at the hon. member for Johannesburg North I think: “Dear Father”. [Interjections.]

[Inaudible.]

In the field of education serious problems have emerged, but we had the courage to subject them to an expert investigation.

These are all achievements of this Government. We were prepared to bring objectivity to the search for solutions. We held important talks with national States; not only with national States born out of South Africa’s policy of emancipation, but also with other States, neighbouring States who are constantly discussing matters with us. I also referred to this here yesterday. If it were not for the climate and the facilities which this Government helped to create, our trade with African States would not have grown to R1 000 million per annum. The first phase in connection with the constellation of States has been dealt with under the direction of Dr. Gerhard de Kock and I read out his letter here during the censure debate, a letter in which he stated that he was now resigning because he was certain that the second phase could now be entered upon in a different way. Under difficult world conditions we are helping to maintain a sound economy in the Republic of South Africa, in a world where economies are unstable, in a world where, in otherwise powerful countries, there is no growth rate. In contrast, South Africa is still showing a growth rate. What is more, we are day by day ensuring our safety in the military sphere and in the sphere of internal order. In this regard we are looking after the interests of South Africa. This Government has reason to be trusted. It is not perfect, but it is nevertheless a pillar of strength and this country is a pillar of strength in a shaky and uncertain world.

I should now like to refer briefly to another matter which was also raised in this debate, namely the presence of other population groups and communities in and around our White areas. One hon. member who spoke here stated that there were usually complaints that the Whites in South Africa were being supplanted. I am afraid this is also the psychosis which is being created by some speakers on the Opposition side, i.e. that they actually want to use the presence of large numbers of non-Whites as a reason why the White man must relinquish his right to self-determination. I am referring to hon. members such as the hon. member for Bryanston for example. [Interjections.] Yes, the old suicide squad, the old hara-kiri squad. He said we need only look at the figures: “Oh dear, just look at the figures!” In the first instance I wish to point out that the presence of Black people and Brown people in a country does not mean being supplanted by them simply because they are there.

Listen Piet!

Stop saying “Listen Piet” every time. Just let me tell that member, who is so fond of making a noise, that the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development is a paragon of humanitarianism towards the people he works with. I think it is disgraceful, base and low-down campaign that is being waged against him to try to bring him into discredit, in spite of all the sacrifices he is making for good relations.

It is no baser and more low-down than the occurrences at Nyanga.

That hon. member must not even open his mouth. For him one can only pray. [Interjections.]

He is the last Van der Merwe joke.

Let us consider the facts. There are more than 700 000 Black domestic servants in South Africa. However, this does not mean we are being supplanted. This means we are using people to ensure that everyday activities in our homes go more smoothly. On the other hand it is also a form of employment. It is therefore not a question of being supplanted. Every person is free to say he does not want a domestic servant. It is certainly not abnormal to manage without a domestic servant. There are also more than 90 000 Coloured domestic servants, and it is also not abnormal to manage without them, if one does not want them. However, while we are using them, we are giving them a form of employment and a way of earning a living, which they would not otherwise have.

All we hear about from the Opposition is the urban Blacks, and how bad the Afrikaner nation in South Africa is.

No. [Interjections.]

Oh yes, those are the reports which are sent abroad and they are created here, reports about the “racists” who govern South Africa. [Interjections.] Do not try to get away from it now. There sits the source of the slander campaign against South Africa. [Interjections.]

It is the NP policy …

We hear about urban Blacks and how we must deal with the problem. However, there are also 4 500 000 Black farm workers in South Africa, not to mention the tens of thousands of Coloured farm workers in the Western Cape. The presence of Black and Coloured farm workers as such does not, however, mean that we are being supplanted. They have a share in the collective economy of South Africa, an economy which must be used to enable them as well to improve their positions and maintain better standards of living. If one listens to the Opposition one hears them talking only about urban Blacks. In the meantime large numbers of Black people are being provided with a livelihood on our farms, which one finds in few other countries in the world. People are impressed by the rapid development which has, inter alia, taken place in respect of housing and schools for Black workers and by the fact that our farming communities are going out of their way to improve the standard of living of their farm workers and treat them like human beings. I repeat, this is not a question of being supplanted.

Moreover the presence as such of Black people for industrial and business purposes in the four metropolitan areas is not a question of our being supplanted. There are 2 779 000 Blacks in the PWV area and 171 000 in the Cape Peninsula, besides those who do not belong here and whom the PFP are helping to bring here, and there are a few thousand of those. In the urban area of Port Elizabeth there are 241 000 and in the Durban-Pinetown area, 132 000. These people are not only essential to the industrial capacity which has to be generated, but their presence in these areas is also essential to their own interests for what they earn they send back to their families and relatives in the national States. It is therefore to the benefit of other communities as well.

I dealt with the question of the Coloureds yesterday. Because they live mainly in the Western Cape—the Western Cape in the broader sense; I am not speaking of the Western Cape in the narrower sense now—provision must be made for them in this part of our country.

They are essential to the survival of the economy in the greater Western Cape.

The presence as such of decent people of colour—whether they be Black, Yellow or Brown—is not a question of our being supplanted.

Except in the dining-room of Parliament.

We admitted this when we dealt with the question of the Nico Malan a few years ago. Where a facility cannot be duplicated, we said, the mere presence of respectable people of colour does not mean that we are being supplanted and is not offensive either. We took this as an example and accepted it as a policy, and it works.

It took you seven years to realize that.

However, where supplanting causes friction, and leads to the occupation of facilities which the Whites consider to be their property, it is unacceptable.

Then we need more facilities.

Yes, and that hon. member also needs more nappies.

Give an example.

What I am going to say now I am saying with the greatest emphasis. The Whites consider certain things to be their property.

Give an example.

For example their schools, certain beaches and certain residential areas. [Interjections.] They consider this to be their property, and although they will not begrudge other people things equal to what they have, they wish to retain what is theirs for their own culture, their own social life and their own pride. [Interjections.] This is what we must guard against. We must guard against the mere presence of large numbers of people of colour getting so out of hand that it trespasses into those areas where the various nations are justified in feeling that they can withdraw themselves into their own environment to enjoy the things which are their own.

It is different in South-West Africa.

I should now like to say a few words in connection with the question of one’s own facilities. In the first place it is my standpoint that if we want our own facilities—and we are entitled to them—we must think of ways and means which will make it possible, especially in the sphere of local authorities, to establish or help to establish facilities so that other population groups can achieve human dignity. In my own constituency I have preached this to my own voters and set them an example, and it is being done. In my own constituency I tried to take part in measures making it possible for the Whites to retain what is their own and for other people to come into their own. If we adopt the standpoint that it is not inferior to have what is one’s own, I say others must not only have these things in their own residential areas but also where they work in our White cities. Here facilities must be created where their mere presence between one and two o’clock or when they are off duty is not offensive. This is the task which lies ahead of us. For this reason the Government has quite rightly made concessions to local authorities this year in its budget. The Government realizes that the burden which local authorities carry is a heavy burden which must be alleviated. For this reason the Government has come forward with measures to accommodate our local authorities. We as members of Parliament, however, will have to take the lead to ensure that this concept is communicated, applied and implemented. Then there will be peace in this land; otherwise there will be friction, confrontation and polarization such as that mentioned by the hon. member for Durban North yesterday. We must try to prevent this. It could be that we shall have to have duplication in respect of community halls, and why not? It will mean that we shall have to establish and help to establish more business facilities in the non-White residential areas. This is an absolute priority. It will also mean that employers will have to dip into their own purses to help enable local authorities to create these facilities. In the past we made the mistake of not giving more attention to these matters. We all made this mistake. We must learn from our mistakes and put things right.

I thought apartheid was dead.

What did that hon. member say?

I thought apartheid was dead, but now it sounds very much alive.

The hon. member for Berea’s brain stopped working a few years ago …

That is a very personal remark.

… because that was a nonsensical remark. Let the former Broeder and I continue our discussion. [Interjections.] Surely as two former j Broeders we can talk to each other. In regard to these matters there was talk of style. The Government promotes the style of consultation and collaboration even to the third tier of Government. For this reason relations committees have been established throughout the country under the guidance, inter alia, of the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs and his predecessors. These relations committees were implemented to implement the concept of consultation, of collaboration and discussions of local problems.

However, there are a few things I wish to warn against this afternoon. Among some Whites there is an incorrect approach to consultation and deliberation. Some of them think it should do this in a master-servant relationship. This is where we are in conflict with some of our own people; this is where we must pay a price in the political field. The former Broeder will know what I am talking about. We are paying a price, because those people do not want to vote for us. They want to retain a master-servant relationship. We say this is wrong. On the other hand, however, there are Whites who say that concensus and deliberation mean that the White man is always wrong and the Black man is always the injured party.

No.

I agree with the hon. member. After all, he comes from that old circle of ours. [Interjections.] I am speaking to him now, Sir. We are now on the same level. We know what we are talking about. Surely we now have contempt for these peo?le who always misrepresent the White man and the Afrikaner in this country. I am pleased that he agrees with me, Sir, and I hope he uses his “Brotherly” influence where he is! [Interjections.]

I maintain, Sir, that it must not be in a master-servant relationship and it must also not be an obsequious relationship. The right attitude is: Be yourself. [Interjections.] I think the hon. member Prof. Olivier should go and sit in the seat of the hon. member for Yeoville; then I can speak to both of them at the same time. [Interjections.] I say, Sir, the correct attitude is: Be yourself. You must retain your self-respect. Do not crawl in front of the Black man. Do not crawl in front of the Coloured. He will then despise you. In particular you must not allow him to do to you what Buthelezi did to the PFP. [Interjections.] No, you would not know. If we hold a dialogue with our other population groups with this attitude then we can be successful. If we remove the venom from the propaganda that wishes to depict South Africa to the world as a polecat, if we can control the polecats with their poison pens in South Africa then this country will be a vision of hope and expectation for all its people.

Someone referred to the question of the Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act, and I merely wish to say the following in this connection. I am not prepared to discuss it here. It is common knowledge—it was in the newspapers—that I am holding discussions with various church bodies and church leaders, and I think it would be extremely irresponsible of me to comment on these matters in public now. I have asked the churches not to make this a subject of agitation and incitement. They are keeping their word and I must keep mine. For this reason I am not prepared to talk about this matter any further until these discussions have been finalized. My standpoints to the churches are clear. There is nothing obscure about them. Let us please leave these matters in the hands of those people to whom I have referred and with whom I wish to consult in the first place.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Prime Minister a question? With all due respect for the standpoint of the hon. the Prime Minister, is it not true that this matter affects many other people and not just the churches?

Of course, but this matter has very, very serious theological aspects as well as sociological aspects and we must first give those people the opportunity to talk about it, as I have requested them to do. I am definitely not going to have a discussion with the hon. member while I am having a discussion with them, because I do not think he can make a contribution. I say this in all fondness and with all due respect to him. In the past he could have made a contribution but not any longer; he is a burnt out plane-tree. [Interjections.]

I wish to conclude.

It is high time.

Who said it is high time?

I did not say so, but I meant to.

The hon. member can always repeat everything anyone else has said like a parrot if he wants to.

In connection with the implementation of the Physical Planning Act I just wish to say that when the re-organization and rationalization of departments took place, certain steps had to be taken in connection with the Physical Planning Act. Because the Office of the Prime Minister was expressly set up to assume the form of an general co-ordinating department, and not an executive department operating in the sphere of other departments, it was decided to leave the Physical Planning Act to certain Ministers as far as the administrative part of this legislation is concerned. In terms of section 13(b) of the Physical Planning Act it was therefore decided to transfer section 2 of the Act to the hon. the Minister of Community Development. This is concerned with the zoning and the subdivision of land for industrial purposes. Section 3 was transferred to the hon. the Minister of Industries, Commerce and Tourism. This section concerns the construction and expansion of factories. Section 4(2), in so far as it involves land reserved in terms of section 4(1)(a), and section 6(b) were transferred to the hon. the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs. This is concerned with permit control and reservation of land for utilization and quarrying activities and operations. Section 4(2), in so far as it involves land reserved in terms of section 4(1), has been transferred to the hon. the Minister of Water Affairs, Forestry and Environmental Conservation. Section 6 has been transferred to the Administrator of the province in which the particular land is situated. The other sections have been transferred or delegated to the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs. As a result the Office of the Prime Minister only retains the overall planning aspects.

I think this has brought me to the end of the matters I had to deal with and I thank the hon. members for their attention.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Prime Minister ended his speech with a subject with which I actually want to begin, viz. the whole question of planning. I studied the report of the Office of the Prime Minister carefully, and there are a number of matters with regard to planning which in my opinion are deserving of a wide-ranging discussion. I understand that the hon. the Prime Minister states that the specific planning functions are being transferred to other departments, but I think that it is also necessary to provide an opportunity for a discussion in Parliament of the overall planning action.

Now?

Yes, and that is exactly what I wish to do.

Before coming to that, I want to say that the hon. the Prime Minister spoke at length about crowding out. This of course is not a problem raised on this side of the House, but on that side. I can therefore understand why it causes some difficulty there.

Will you help to organize a little?

The solution to the problem offered by the hon. the Prime Minister, if I understand it correctly, amounts to the principle of separate, but equal. Just one last question to the hon. the Prime Minister: If it is true that we must try to create separate but equal facilities, is he prepared to amend the Separate Amenities Act in this connection, because that Act specifically provides that this need not be the case, viz. that separate, but not necessarily equal, facilities may be created? Then, if the hon. the Prime Minister is sincere in his intention that this must be done in the areas where crowding out takes place with regard to facilities, then it seems to me logical that the Act must be amended accordingly, as was indeed recommended by the judicial commission which went into the whole issue of the normalization of sport. The hon. the Minister of National Education knows what I am referring to. The recommendation of the commission was that there should be an in-depth investigation with regard to the Bill. I shall leave the matter at that. I want to turn to the issue of planning. The best way of tackling it is to refer to a problem touched on by the hon. the Prime Minister right at the beginning of his speech today. It is the issue of squatting. One can regard this issue in the short term as an immediate problem which must be solved immediately, or one can look at the background problems that underlie it. In doing so one is struck by the fact that if a male Black worker from Bophuthatswana, for example, were to go and work in Pretoria for three months, and then be put in jail for nine months because he had, say, infringed influx control measures, he would still be 28,5% better off in comparison with the average income he would have earned in Bophuthatswana if he had remained there. Let me give another example. If a Black man were to go to Pietermaritzburg from the Ciskei and work there for six months and be jailed for six months due to infringing influx control measures, he would still be 468,5% better off than if he had remained in the Ciskei. I mention these examples to illustrate that there are tremendously strong forces …

That is no argument.

… tremendously strong forces underlying the movements of people to the urban areas. They believe that they will be better off there. That is the problem we shall have to deal with by way of planning. We are also told that, given these forces at work in South Africa—and may I say to the hon. the Prime Minister that they are far more powerful than any orchestrated effort or organizer could possible achieve—75% of the Black people will be outside the confederal States and in the metropolitan areas at the end of this century.

Is that on the existing development pattern?

Yes. That is why I say that the whole planning effort is of such cardinal importance. Accordingly, I also wish to ask the hon. the Minister involved whether the Government recognizes that the vast majority of those who are envisaged as being citizens of the national States, will be living and working outside those States. Secondly, there is the question as to whether the Government also recognizes that any effort to achieve deconcentration and decentralization of industries in the foreseeable future is going to take place in the vicinity—and by that I mean within about 50 km—of existing metropolitan and urban centres. If that is so, I wish to ask what plans exist to make more land in these areas available for Black residential purposes and other community development purposes. Here the issue of land becomes of cardinal importance. It is pointless saying that there is so much land available for the homelands, and then everything will be rounded off in terms of the 1975 proposals based on the 1936 legislation. If it is, in effect, true that 75% of the Black people are going to be living outside those national States, then they have to live on land, and that land will have to be provided.

The second question I want to ask in that connection—this also relates to planning—is this: What intention does the Government have to abandon a conventional housing policy? I think the hon. the Prime Minister will agree that the existing housing policy in respect of Blacks will not solve the problem for us. We shall simply be unable to do it. We shall have to consider new housing measures. What are the Government’s ideas in this connection?

A third question which relates more specifically to the situation in the Western Cape is whether the Government intends to persist with the Coloured labour preference policy in the Western Cape. If that is so, the Government must give us reasonable, practical, logical reasons why this is so. At present the reason is not clear to me—except if it is for emotional, sentimental reasons—why this policy is being persisted in despite its causing us so much harm. Why should it apply with regard to the Western Cape and not with regard to Johannesburg or Pretoria or any other place? There is no apparent reason for this which has anything to do with the issue of urbanization.

Then, too, I wish to put a specific question relating to a subject which the hon. the Prime Minister referred in the censure debate and which one of my hon. colleagues will come back to. It is this: Where and how is the Government going to counter “the natural magnetism of the greater metropolitan areas” by “gradually changing from subsidized tariffs for services and facilities to full cost calculation”? It has been said that deterrent processes will have to take place. This is something which will be dealt with at greater length by the hon. member for Yeoville. This is an important question, because at the same time as an influx of people to the cities is taking place, the Government is contemplating initiating deterrent processes. I do not think that these two can be separated from one another without further ado.

It is not only urban development …

No, I accept that. I merely require more information about it.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. Leader of the Opposition?

No. My time is very limited. I now turn to the next point I want to make, and this is really the most important point. I concede, and we shall not argue about it, that deconcentration and decentralization of industries is important, and that it is essential that they take place. However, I think it is of cardinal importance that we should also understand and agree that while these efforts are being made to deconcentrate and decentralize, they should not be seen as a substitute for the problems of urbanization which will have to be dealt with in the short term. We must deal with those problems. I regard it as important for us to realize that while an effort is being made to deconcentrate and decentralize, consideration must at the same time be given to problems of urbanization and how they may be dealt with. The two do not necessarily comprise the same problem.

In this connection I want to refer briefly once again to prof. Flip Smit, with specific reference to an article he wrote in the Tydskrif vir Wetenskap en Kuns in which he makes the point that even the cities in the national States are situated about 30 to 40 km from the so-called White cities. Therefore this is a concentrated area. We must not, therefore, create the impression that we are going to create employment opportunities in the rural heartland, as it were, in the foreseeable future, or that we are going to develop cities. That is out of the question. Therefore this brings me to the point that when it is an issue of the deconcentration and decentralization of industries, consideration should simultaneously be given to the development of the agricultural potential of the rural areas. However, this cannot be done if we have a resettlement policy which makes this impossible. The hon. the Prime Minister referred to the agricultural potential of the homelands. What he says is true, but it will get us nowhere if those rural areas are over-populated, because then one will never develop the agricultural potential of those areas properly. [Interjections.]

This brings me to the point made by the hon. the Prime Minister with regard to the issue of land. There is another way of approaching physical planning. One can decide to give more land to the homelands. I have read the Cabinet’s statement in this connection. The hon. the Prime Minister referred to it this afternoon and there is also an investigation in progress in this connection. In this connection there is a principle I want explained. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition devoted his speech to asking a number of questions about planning in South Africa. He also made the statement that if a Black man were to come from Bophuthatswana and work here for three months, and be arrested because he had infringed influx control measures or perhaps was not in possession of the necessary documents or a pass, he would be locked up for nine months.

I said: “Supposing he was …”

No, Sir. He said that the Black man would then be locked up for nine months. [Interjections.] Supposing however he did say: “Supposing he was …”. Why, then, does he make such an absurd assumption?

It is a man from the University of South Africa who made that assumption.

We are practising politics. Surely we are not busy with anything else. After all, the hon. the Leader of the Opposition knows that when he says something here it is taken as gospel truth by the English-language newspapers. Must the people outside read tomorrow how hard-hearted the Government is in locking up for nine months a man who wants to come here to work, thereby locking him up for a period three times longer than the period for which he worked? [Interjections.] The hon. the Leader of the Opposition began on a very positive note, but I think that this kind of absurd comparison is really going too far. I think one should rather refrain from this kind of thing.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition asks whether this decentralization is now going to be confined to within 50 kilometres of a large centre. Of course this will not be the case.

I should like to dwell for a moment on the Department of Planning. In fact, the history of the Department of Planning begins in 1947. It was the last relatively positive thing that the old United Party Government did, viz. to establish the Natural Resources Development Council. This was followed in 1964 by the idea put forward by the then Prime Minister, Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, of a Department of Planning, which in turn was followed by the creation of a Department of Planning by the former Prime Minister in 1967. It was a full-fledged Department of Planning established by Act of Parliament. There was a small group of people who played a very important role in the planning of South Africa, in the overall physical planning of the country. I have in mind people like Dr. Rautenbach, Mr. Fred Otto, and also that colossus of a man whom we knew as Oom Piet Pretorius, the father of Richards Bay and the Sishen-Saldanha project. These people were pioneers in the field of overall physical planning in South Africa.

Even though there was a great deal of criticism—and there was criticism because mistakes were made; it was a new department and everyone makes mistakes—nevertheless this department went its way unobtrusively and without fuss and did a great deal of positive work. For example, the national physical planning of South Africa was carried out in 1975 in terms of the so-called NPDP. and 11 different regional studies were also carried out, studies relating to regional planning, seven of which had already been disposed of when the latest rationalization took place. In addition, 30 guide plans were tackled, of which 16 have been completed while others are still being dealt with. This means that when the process of rationalization began—as we have now again seen in the budget—the new planning effort was classified into six branches under the control of the hon. the Prime Minister, and the question arose as to how planning was to be carried out in future. I think that it is now basically a question of carrying on without fuss and building on the foundations already laid.

The NPDP—the National Physical Development Plan—does exist, after all, and is already being reviewed. Because nothing can remain stagnant or static, it must be readapted from time to time. This plan provides that the Physical Planning Branch of this department will now be able to plan on a macro-scale in the Republic of South Africa. However, this planning will not be limited only to the Republic of South Africa; in our macro-planning we shall also have to look beyond borders, beyond the borders of friendly States, and as the idea of a constellation takes root and develops, further planning will also have to be carried out. As far as this matter is concerned we shall have to take another look at the macro-planning as consolidation progresses and borders are redrawn.

Moreover, we shall have to go further than that. In the short and medium term we shall also have to look at one another’s resources in order to prevent planning from overlapping. For example, we shall have to look at one another’s minerals, water, energy, labour resources and so on, and at that stage we shall have to prevent duplication in those fields as well.

However, the former department also carried out regional planning. I believe that the solution of the problems of planning in the short and medium term does lie in regional planning, concerted regional planning which can be tackled under a regional development economic committee. If the number of regions for which the planning is to be tackled immediately, can be identified and we can begin with a basis of project planning, then I believe that we should do so on a limited basis. In the past we have tried to bite off more than we could chew. Since we wish to carry out intensive and concerted planning, we must not act haphazardly. What we tackle, we must tackle in such a way that we are really able to initiate and co-ordinate matters. I believe that this controlling committee ought to be economically as well as physically oriented. When one considers this matter, one cannot help being enthusiastic about it. Suppose the Republic of South Africa and a friendly national State were to decide to tackle a joint regional project. Could you imagine, Mr. Chairman, what the components could be? The Republic of South Africa, with its infrastructure which it creates in its own territory, namely roads, railways, water, power and airports. Then there is private initiative, with the enormous reserves of skills, capital and initiative that could emanate from that sector. In the third place, there is the national State which becomes a participating partner, with its reserves of labour and perhaps its reserves of minerals. However, if one thinks of the new idea of a development bank, this bank can become an instrument to enable that national State to develop an infrastructure within its borders to such an extent as to enable it to link up with the infrastructure of the Republic of South Africa. All that is then required are two components, namely enthusiasm and the willingness to co-operate. That is all that is still required, because one already has all the other components. I believe, too, that it will be essential for the Government of the Republic of South Africa to provide incentives and to take certain initiatives as regards incentives. It will have to pay certain subsidies and will have to make them sufficiently attractive to persuade people from the private sector to come and participate. I am not even talking about tax concessions, but when it is a matter of development within the Black territory, then the private sector can expect certain guarantees from the South African Government. I think that this is something which would probably stimulate the private sector, too, to participate in this type of development within a Black country. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, arising from what the hon. member for Roodeplaat has said, may I just put one question? It is the question that the hon. Leader of the Opposition was raising when his time expired. He was referring to the statement made by the hon. the Minister of Co-operation and Development pertaining to consolidation. I should like to refer specifically to paragraph (d), where the following is said—

Now the important part follows—

*I put this question to the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs, because I think he is going to react to this debate on planning matters: What does he in fact envisage? What is he in fact aiming at in this regard? What does he envisage in regard to these matters?

†I should like to refer specifically to two things that arise in regard to planning matters. The first is the report that comes from the hon. the Prime Minister’s office. This is the first of these reports, and as far as my party and I are concerned we welcome the report. It gives us an indication of what the activities are in the various departments and it gives us an idea of the degree of planning that is afoot. The hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs will forgive me if I say to him that it has got the signs of a planned society. I can go through all the various aspects …

It implies control.

That is the whole point. I think we must be very careful. When, in fact, we now find ourselves in a structure where there is social planning, physical planning and security planning—you name it—I think we are on the road to a planned society where one must be very, very careful, because on the one hand the Government is the champion of a free market system while on the other hand it is the advocate of a high degree of planning. [Interjections.] Do not get me wrong. If this Government did not do any planning, if it did not in fact apply its mind to the problems of South Africa, I would be the first to criticize it. Let us therefore understand each other. A degree of planning is required, but the issue is whether it is in fact a planned society or a society which can use plans that are made available to it. The greatest dilemma which faces this Government in relation to its planning is that it has particular economic objectives which are related to a number of things that are being done by this office, with the exception of the constitutional planning to which I shall come in a moment. Its economic objectives are very clear and with most of them I have very little quarrel. They want full employment, growth and a stable society; they want adequate housing and a society that is moving in the direction of economic progress. They look upon that society as being South Africa because the trend right throughout this report clearly indicates that the planning is being done for South Africa. It is not done on an isolated basis, and it is accepted that there actually is one economy in South Africa.

Are you now referring to economic planning?

Correct, to economic planning. In other words, the problem of this Government is that it has a plan for the economic development of South Africa as a whole, while it has a constitutional plan for the fragmentation of South Africa. These are two conflicting concepts. Whenever one looks at the apparent failures in regard to the economic planning, one finds the failure is due to its political problems. It seeks to achieve one political objective and a different economic objective. Until it manages to reconcile the political objectives with the economic objectives, it is not going to be able to solve either problem.

Another very good report covering the PWV complex has been made available to us and concerns us in particular. In this report it is made quite clear that the reason for the failure of the decentralization programme is not because of the economic objective, but because of the political implications which, in fact, destroyed the economic objective. Now we are seeking to overcome that with regional planning, but regional planning is a complete admission that one cannot plan economically and yet continue with the kind of political and constitutional planning that one has in mind.

Surely, that is not correct.

This is correct. It is fundamental, and that is why one finds in this report a complete admission of failure—which nobody disputes today—of the decentralization programme. We have spent a fortune and we have not had any real return.

This is where I come to what is, to me, a fundamental issue, and I would like the hon. the Minister to reply to this because on that, in fact, depends our whole security. Is it more important for South Africa to have jobs or to have the jobs in specifically allocated areas? I say that what is the number one priority for South Africa today is actually to have our people employed. It is fundamental.

Why do you contrast these two things?

Because they go together. This is where the whole tragedy of the Government lies. The tragedy arises from the fact that the constitutional planning does not fit in with the economic objectives, objectives which are laudable. That is the tragedy of the Government’s planning programme, and I wish it were not so. One of the things that worries me is whether it is not better, with the kind of threat facing us, to have three jobs in a particular spot where it is easy and cheap to create them, than to have one job somewhere else for some or other ideological reason. The figures are all available to indicate what it costs to create jobs. One of the most significant things about the PWV area was the statement made by the hon. the Prime Minister on 3 August 1981. In dealing with the deconcentration concept he says (Hansard, col. 60)—

In other words, there is a bill to be paid that may well result in those jobs becoming more expensive, in particular areas, than would otherwise be the case. I do not have the time to quote everything, but the hon. the Prime Minister goes one step further by saying—

Do you not agree with that?

I do not. That is why I am asking the hon. the Minister to deal with that. Can the hon. the Minister tell me whether that means that the PWV area is going to have the pay the full cost allocation for every service, whether it be transport, housing, or labour, and even if it means the abolition of training allowances or the abolition of preferences on rail tariffs in certain instances and also the abolition of investment allowances. The solution is not to take away the jobs or to divert them from the PWV area. The issue is that we have to create more jobs in South Africa. The PWV area is also the most valuable job-creating area in the whole of South Africa. It is an area where jobs can be created cheaply and where they can be created without any trouble.

It is already overflowing.

The figures show that the population in the PWV area is going to increase to 8,6 million in the next 20 years, but what they also show is that it is going to have a shortage of a quarter of a million economically active people at the end of those 20 years. Yet what is proposed is that jobs be diverted from that area where they can, in fact, be created cheaply. The most important thing for South Africa is, let me tell the hon. the Minister, that our people have jobs, because if one does not achieve the objective of employing our people, one is going to find oneself with a destabilized society, with all the problems that destabilization entails. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I find it interesting that the hon. member for Yeoville has only entered the debate at this stage. I formed the impression that the hon. member for Yeoville was not with the official Opposition heart and soul, and that he only entered the debate at this stage because he did not really wish to participate in the political part of the discussion. [Interjections.] The hon. member referred specifically to the PWV region and I infer that what he wants to do is to make a gradual start with spadework for city council elections. However, the hon. member is aware that the solution is not as simple as that, and that an over-concentration results in many other problems. The aim is to have balanced planning in South Africa. We also have an objective, as the hon. the Prime Minister said during the Carlton conference. With reference to the Republic, and Southern Africa as a whole, the hon. the Prime Minister said—

That is also our objective as regards planning. The conference which the hon. the Prime Minister has set for 12 November is a further milestone on the road to the achievement of this goal. Indeed, it is a continuation of those exciting policy initiatives that are being launched, and there has already been a very enthusiastic reaction from business management. However, the official Opposition is silent on these initiatives. Indeed, they are given no recognition whatsoever. Nor did the hon. the Leader of the Opposition refer to this important conference which is to take place again shortly when he spoke after the hon. the Prime Minister yesterday afternoon. They are not telling the people of South Africa about the steps being taken to achieve this objective, nor are their newspapers bringing the true state of affairs to the attention of readers. The hon. the Prime Minister quoted another example of this this afternoon. The country’s problems are also presented as simple, and the solutions for them, as even more simple, whereas in fact they are complex.

I should like to refer specifically to the question of the physical and economic development in South Africa and the planning in this regard. On 3 August this year the hon. the Prime Minister laid down very important guidelines with regard to regional development. He said that the most important aims were, inter alia, (Hansard, 3 August 1981, col. 56)—

He added that there should be (Hansard, 3 August 1981, col. 58)—

He went on to say that the local communities, inter alia, must be involved in this development process (Hansard, col. 55). I should like to refer to this. In Programme 3: Planning of the Vote it is stated that the aim is—

Under the programme description, with regard to physical planning, reference is made to—

This description confirms the specific recognition by the Government of regional development associations in particular. These associations constitute a very important link with the regions, particularly because a regional development association represents the interests of a specific region in the widest sense.

The Government is therefore remaining in contact with regions and local communities through regional development associations in order to keep abreast of the specific development and trends and at the same time to have the opportunity to keep interest groups in a region abreast of the policy and development of such a region. The regional development association can also be used as a medium to cultivate greater regional awareness and dedication and by so doing, to strengthen the regional maintenance function.

It is surely only human that every regional development association in the Republic, due to its very nature, will negotiate and plead for the maximum benefits and development for its region; so that due to the dissimilarity of the various regions, the development proposals of regional development associations cannot always be synchronized. This is the case particularly because in certain regions, specific development problems are encountered. It is necessarily the case that development strategies for the latter regions usually have to be given priority with a view to achieving the best results.

It is still the ideal ultimately to compile a development strategy for each region, taking the national interests into account. An exceptional development from the point of view of planning was the establishment of regional development advisory committees, which are expert bodies formed to assist the State in formulating and considering planning and development proposals at a regional level. Of particular importance, too, is that the committee also assesses the resolutions and the decisions of regional development associations against the criterion of the interests of the country in general. There must be close liaison between the regional development association and the regional development advisory committee, because both operate in the same region and area of interest. It is essential, with a view to the co-ordination of planning and development proposals emanating from the regional community, that such matters intended for the regional development advisory committees be channelled by the regional development association to the advisory committees so that all regional development efforts may be co-ordinated. The reverse process is necessary too; that is to say, where the government refers matters to a regional development advisory committee, the advisory committee must also bring the matter to the attention of the regional development association. It is true that both the regional development associations and the regional development advisory committees only really operate in the sphere of physical-economic planning. In the nature of the matter, each region is not saddled only with physical-economic problems; in addition to these problems there are also the political, the security, the social and even the scientific problems for which planning must be carried out with a view to satisfactory solutions. The regional development associations and the regional development advisory committees will in future undoubtedly have to play a more important role in the achievement of our national objective, and also in accordance with the objectives of the regional development associations.

To comply with these objectives and therefore with the comprehensive planning and development structure of a region, regional development associations will undoubtedly have to give greater and more urgent attention to a wide variety of factors in considering development and planning proposals. These are factors relating to the social structure, health, the improvement of values, of the environment and security; in other words, factors that contribute towards balanced regional communities. Thereafter the physical-economic structure of planning comes into operation. Therefore I am of the opinion that regional development must devote itself to all the spheres of planning in its region in the same way as, and in accordance with, the office of the Prime Minister, where all the planning components are united. When all the aspects of planning are considered and are involved in consultation, balanced proposals will be formulated. The present structure of the regional development advisory committee will also have to be broadened in order to deal with every facet of planning, not only physical and economic planning, but also social, security, scientific and political planning, so that comprehensive planning may be carried out and there can be full interaction between the regional development association and the advisory committee, and joint inputs can be made in order to provide the regional development association in particular with planning perspectives. The additional skills to comply with this must therefore be introduced into the regional development advisory committee.

Future balanced development certainly demands the full co-operation of all involved. A fully co-ordinated planning structure in every region will afford the individual and every community organization and governmental body the opportunity to participate in the planning process. Indeed, such participation in the planning process is indispensable for properly balanced planning. The regulation and development of a region is a matter that intimately affects the life and the quality of life of every individual within that region. Planning machinery has been established to the benefit of the communities in the various regions, and indeed they afford everyone the opportunity to participate but at the same time pose a challenge to everyone to participate in the expansion of one’s own region.

I should like to say that it is evident from the annual report—with reference to physical planning—that at the end of 1980 there were six regional development advisory committees as against 35 regional development associations. It is my opinion that regional development advisory committees should also be established in regions where such advisory committees do not yet exist. Not every region can be a growth point, not every region has the same development possibilities, but what is important is that every region has an important task in the overall structure of the country. I therefore believe that it is of importance that the region and its development machinery should be enabled to orient its planning in accordance with and in the interests of the national development plan, thus being able to eliminate overlapping and waste of time and power in this regard in connection with anticipated development possibilities. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I hope that the hon. member for Klerksdorp will not take it amiss of me if I do not react to his speech this afternoon, but I hope that in the circumstances he will understand. With the impatience and decided rashness of a new member, I had begun to think that I would never address this House. Now that the moment of truth has come for me, I am convinced that it could have waited a little longer!

I am, of course, Mr. Chairman, very grateful for the wonderful privilege of being able to take my place in this House. I should like to convey my sincere thanks to those hon. members who, with so much goodwill and thoughtfulness, helped to make me feel at home here.

I should like to exchange a few ideas about the subject under discussion, viz. planning and I want to refer in particular to regional planning in general and also, briefly, in connection with the region in which my constituency, Kroonstad, is situated. It is no problem for me to explain to hon. members this afternoon where Kroonstad is situated, because after the hon. member for Welkom had so carefully informed the House exactly where the Free State is, everyone will know where Kroonstad is. As the name quite rightly indicates, Kroonstad is the crown of the Free State.

However, when I speak of Kroonstad I ask that you allow me to pay a brief tribute to my highly esteemed predecessor, the hon. Alwyn Schlebusch, Vice-state President of the Republic of South Africa, who represented the Kroonstad constituency in this House for 18 years. This great son of the Free State served his constituency, the Free State and our fatherland, exceptionally well, and he is of course still engaged in this task today. As a member of the House of Assembly he sacrificed everything for the people of his constituency. He left his indelible mark on the Free State, in the capacity of leader as well. He served this House with great distinction as Speaker. He rendered valuable service to our country as Minister of State in various portfolios and also as chairman of the first and second Schlebusch Commissions. We as a constituency thank and honour him for that and I should like to take this opportunity to pray that he be granted grace and strength and wisdom in the special task that rests on his shoulders at this time.

The word “planning” is a very broad concept, and therefore planning is a very wide-ranging task, as is evident from the programme description of the Vote. To be able to plan meaningfully it is necessary to do so within the framework of the various components that are of essential importance for us in South Africa at this specific period in our development, viz. security planning, physical planning, social, economic, scientific and political planning. It is a case of doing the one and not neglecting the other, due to the fact that these different planning actions are so totally bound up with one another.

The realization of our national objectives or the formulation of a national strategy with regard to all these components requires intensive study, research and the maximum utilization of our best available brain power to create, in the final instance, an order in Southern Africa in which all its people will be able to live and work in peace, prosperity and safety. Therefore this planning is of vital importance for orderly survival in South Africa, and the hon. the Prime Minister must be congratulated on the exceptional initiative of co-ordinating this planning from the office of the Prime Minister.

I wish to turn briefly to the physical-spatial component of this planning action, viz. the division of the country into regions and the regional development action. The division of the country into regions, which was formulated as far back as 1975 in the National Physical Development Plan, was the first positive and exciting step towards co-ordinated physical planning. I believe this is the only way to achieve a meaningful and really well organized development pattern.

Regional development is the corner-stone of economic policy and affords every region, and the people of the communities of that region, the opportunity to develop to their full economic and social potential. It is a recognized fact today that some of the smaller towns on the platteland are dying a slow death due to various factors. The two most important factors are probably the depopulation problem and the inability of our smaller local authorities to make ends meet. Co-ordinated and effective regional planning creates development possibilities and levels of co-operation. A great deal has been said about this, but in practice very little has come of it. There is no denying that the smaller local authorities, with their limited manpower and finances, for the sake of their own continued existence simply cannot carry on and are simply no longer able to afford the existing isolation from one another, and that co-operation on a regional basis has therefore become imperative.

Real gratitude is due for the financial benefits for local authorities announced in the budget this year, and it is really to be hoped that in the future still further such benefits will be possible. However, I find it necessary to issue a warning today that there should not be an attitude of always simply waiting for State aid; the various major towns, the towns in their service areas and their regional development organizations, together with the provincial administrations and the Government departments concerned, should sit down together and give concrete effect and meaning to this—thus far vague—concept of regional planning and use it as a dynamic aid in improving and stabilizing the viability of our rural areas to such an extent that we do not have constant talk and complaints of deterioration.

In conclusion I just want to refer briefly to Region 30. This is the region in which my constituency falls in terms of the National Physical Development Programme. We in this region are of course in the unique position of having two designated principal towns, namely Welkom and Kroonstad. Some people may find this strange, but an intimate knowledge of this part of the world will reveal the reasons for it. In view of the expanding mining activities that have taken place on the Free State gold fields in recent times and the indications that further major developments are in the offing in the near future, the idea is taking shape that the Free State goldfields complex can increasingly be seen as a metropolitan transition region and is already beginning to develop a clear metropolitan character.

On the other hand it has also become clearer in recent years that Kroonstad is beginning to perform a greater administrative and educational role in the region. It is therefore evident that there are no conflicting interests between Kroonstad and Welkom as designated principal centres, but that instead they are supplementary. Their respective interests and potential will be best served if future development is directed along these lines. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Kroonstad on his maiden speech which he delivered in an impressive and confident manner. I wish him well as a member of this House.

This is the first time that I have to stand up in front of the hon. the Prime Minister of my country to tell him what I think of his policy. As a young man in politics, it makes me feel a little like Daniel in the lion’s den. [Interjections.] I only hope that what I say will not make the lion want to bite me. [Interjections.]

The main matter which I should like to raise in the Prime Minister’s Vote, is that I believe one of this Government’s policies is immoral in human terms and in economic and planning terms it is throttling the orderly development of the Western Cape.

I refer to the policy of regarding the Western Cape as a Coloured labour preference area. In moral terms this policy, which singles out Whites and Coloureds for special access to the Western Cape while denying it to our fellow Black South Africans, is unjust discrimination in one of its worst forms. What is more, when it leads to the shameful evictions which we have seen in the past few weeks at Nyanga, it is exposed in its very worst form. While on the subject of evictions at Nyanga, let me say that when the Government persecutes the squatters at Nyanga, it does so in the name of the NP and not in the name of the whole of White South Africa. I appeal to the hon. the Prime Minister that, when the Government acts in that way, it should not try to suck the whole of White South Africa into its policy of White domination.

In economic terms the Coloured labour preference policy is throttling the orderly development of the Western Cape. The policy is a disaster. Experts have said so, and I wish to refer to a few of them. The Bureau of Economic Research at Stellenbosch has criticized the policy. In fact, reference has been made to that in the House a long time ago. The Cape Chamber of Industries has criticized the policy. The Director of the Cape Chamber of Industries some 18 months ago went on record as saying—

Another expert, Prof. Erika Theron of the Theron Commission, as long ago as October 1979, together with the secretary of that commission, Prof. J. D. Theron, went on record as saying that they believed that “the policy is counter-productive”. Even the Coloured people themselves, whom this policy is supposed to benefit, are opposed to it. To give just one example …

Is there unemployment in the Western Cape, yes or no?

I shall come to that. I wonder whether the hon. the Prime Minister or the Government is aware of a statement the Labour Party issued on 12 August, just the other day, a statement in which they said, inter alia—

What nonsense!

I appeal to the Government, particularly to the hon. the Prime Minister, to take account of this expert advice and to scrap this policy as a matter of urgency.

We must scrap this policy. We must accept the inflow of Blacks into this area and regard them as vital partners in the economic and industrial growth of the Western Cape. It is significant and it is perhaps poetic justice, that the relative decline of the Western Cape started in the early sixties after 100 years in which the Western Cape was the second most powerful metropolitan complex in South Africa. [Interjections.] This relative decline started at round about the same time as when the labour preference policy was implemented. The policy was announced in 1962. I leave it to economists to make a connection, if there is one. Since 1965 Blacks have been admitted on a contract basis only. In this regard I refer hon. members to the Physical Planning and Utilization of Resources Act, No. 88 of 1967. I want to put it to the House—this is an important economic point—that when we stopped Black people coming to the Western Cape, we slowed the growth of the Western Cape.

But now you are talking nonsense.

People are essential to the creation of jobs …

But there are more than 6 000 unemployed people here at present. Are you being quite silly?

… and they are essential to the growth of the economy of the area.

What did Ben Schoeman do about this? [Interjections.]

Economic growth and job creation follow the growing demands for skills and goods and services which a growing population creates. It creates it of itself, particularly if one allows an informal economy to develop at the same time. When the growing demand is there the business follows, the business flourishes, and the jobs follow in the process. This is widely recognized throughout the world. It is not a new and revolutionary concept. People are needed in order to grow. In overseas countries I have seen big billboards outside towns inviting people to come and settle in those towns. In the hon. the Prime Minister’s own constituency of George the town clerk recently wrote in a pamphlet, which I saw, in which he effectively asked people not only to visit that town but to come and settle there. A settler is worth many times a visitor.

The Administrator of the Cape acknowledges this point at the beginning of last year when he said, and I quote—

You see, Mr. Chairman, Blacks do not appear to be people in the Government’s lexicon. [Interjections.]

You are talking absolute rubbish.

That is the problem. They want people, but they only want White people, Coloured people; they do not want the Black people.

And if there is no work for them, what do you want us to do?

The Government elevates this to its official policy. They chase the Black people away, the very people we need as partners in our growth here.

What are you talking about. You are all at sea.

The reason for this can only be found … [Interjections.] The reason for this very strange attitude, where on the one hand experts say we need people, while on the other hand the Government is chasing people away, can only be found in the Government’s race ideology. The Government seems to think that the Blacks are somehow going to contaminate us in this region, that we must push them out, that they are some kind of disease. Frankly, it is an attitude that I reject with contempt. I put it to the hon. the Prime Minister that if the Government wants growth in the Western Cape the Government must abandon its ideology, because if it insists on its ideology, the Western Cape will continue to be a dying area.

I also want to put it to the hon. the Prime Minister that some 160 years ago Lord Charles Somerset made a fool of himself in trying to keep Blacks …

And you are making a fool of yourself here today.

Lord Charles Somerset made a fool of himself by trying to keep Blacks beyond a buffer zone on the other side of the Fish River and he failed. He made a fool of himself.

And you are making a fool of yourself now.

The hon. the Prime Minister is placing himself in the same foolish tradition by attempting to maintain his Coloured labour preference policy. If we wish to stabilize urban areas and rural areas and to optimize their productive capacity, then urbanization on a massive scale has to be accepted and dealt with, and the Western Cape cannot be excluded from that process.

While I am still on my feet, I hope the House will bear with me …

Why do you not rather sit down?

… I should like to take the opportunity of reacting briefly to the scurrilous smear attack which was made upon me by the hon. member for Maitland. He made a smear by association attack upon me on Monday by quoting the racialist comments of other people …

Order! The hon. member for Constantia must withdraw the word “scurrilous”.

I withdraw the word “scurrilous” Mr. Chairman. The hon. member made a vicious attack on me.

You supported those representations.

The hon. member tried to create the impression that I shared their views. I should like to tell this House that I totally dissociate myself from those who introduced racialism into the High Constantia cottages issue. The hon. member for Maitland is one of the main culprits. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not intend spending much time on the hon. member for Constantia. In any event I do not think it is worth the trouble. In the first place, I think that the hon. member should do a little research. My latest research has revealed to me that Lord Charles Somerset was a Prog. [Interjections.] Therefore the hon. member for Constantia made a fatal blunder that affects the whole premise of his argument.

The whole issue of a Coloured labour preference area in the Western Cape is not as simple as the hon. member tried to make it out to be. Since I have been in politics, and even before that, hon. members of the PFP have consistently maintained that the Government decentralizes in South Africa for ideological reasons only.

No, that is not true.

If hon. members opposite had supported us earlier in the honest efforts to decentralize, things would have been far easier today. Decentralization of industries, of activities, in South Africa and in every other country in the world does not occur purely for ideological reasons. There are economic reasons, social reasons and a variety of other reasons. If those hon. members had done something about the matter at an earlier stage, when they still had a very big say here in the Cape Peninsula, then we should not have had this situation in the Cape Peninsula today.

Who rejected the Tomlinson Commission?

No one apart from the Progs rejected the Tomlinson Commission.

It is a simple matter, after all. Two regions in South Africa that are suffering severely from a stagnating economic situation today are the Western Cape and the border areas. Who was in control of these areas in the period when they were being formed? Was it the NP? When we came forward with the idea of decentralization and all that that entailed, those hon. members bitterly opposed us. To say now that the unsatisfactory growth of the economy in the Western Cape is solely due to the fact that the Western Cape is a Coloured labour preference area, is totally wrong. Apart from the fact that it is wrong, it is a slap in the face of the Coloured population of the Western Cape. I do not think we should waste much time with people who still do not know what they are talking about in politics.

I now wish to speak to people who know more about politics. I am referring to the hon. Leader of the Opposition and the hon. member for Yeoville. I should like to speak to them. The hon. the Leader of the Opposition did not have the opportunity in the course of his speech to complete a question he wanted to put to the hon. the Minister. The hon. member for Yeoville then did so and referred to the Cabinet statement of 28 October 1980, specifically to paragraph D which reads—

The hon. member for Yeoville did not read the whole paragraph and this created some confusion. However, I think that what the hon. the Leader of the Opposition basically wants to know is whether the 1936 quota as expressed in the 1975 proposals are going to be the alpha and the omega of consolidation. He must not read into this statement that they are going to be the alpha and the omega, but what he must read in this statement is that this is the basis on which any further possible consolidation proposals will be accommodated. It is against the background of our own report in which we said that the mere addition of land will not necessarily increase the economic potential of the national and/or independent States that one should consider this matter and that one should also bear in mind the new guidelines. If one cannot add land which could be an economic asset, one should rather consider other courses of action that are open to one to create an economic asset for those Black States. One could consider such possibilities as the creation of employment opportunities, which must play a very important role in the development of the Black States. Only 28% of the labour force which comes available in the Black States is accommodated in the Black States themselves. The rest have to be absorbed in the economy of the Republic of South Africa, and this places a heavy burden on the economy of the Republic of South Africa.

Against the background of what the hon. the Prime Minister said, and also the remarks made here, we have today the factual situation, with regard to the existing surface area of the national States, that only 58% of the dry arable land and 53% of the irrigable land is being utilized. Now it is being said that the problem is that these people are settled on agricultural land and that that land cannot therefore be used for agriculture. I partially concede that this is a de facto problem. However, hon. members must bear in mind that a large percentage of that land has been occupied by those people since 1913, and at that stage South Africa did not have a say in the settlement pattern. South Africa did have a say in the settlement pattern of land that has been added since 1936, viz. the quota land. On the other hand, hon. members must also realize that it is a very major problem for South Africa to deal with the situation with the authority at its disposal, because it is a question of communal land-ownership in a Black State. Therefore, if we resettle a tribe in a Black region, we must settle them as a tribe, because there is no individual land-ownership; instead there is tribal ownership. For ethnic reasons we dare not split the tribe up because by doing so we should only be looking for trouble. Hon. members will surely realize that. However, one can certainly do something about the situation, and we are definitely going to try to do something about it.

I should like to address a few words to the hon. member for Yeoville. I agree with him that the PWV area is a very important area in South Africa. It is a recognized fact that the PWV area, which comprises a little less than 3% of the surface area of South Africa, generates more than 60% of the economy in our country. In that area we also have the situation that the ratio of White people to Black people is 1:1,9. The hon. member now maintains that it is cheaper to create employment opportunities in the metropolitan areas than in decentralized areas.

I want to say here and now that as far as this is concerned I wish to differ with the hon. member. If the hon. member is speaking of decentralized areas in terms of the old approach of trying to establish 110 small growth points, then he is correct. However, if he is speaking in terms of the new philosphy, viz. of fewer growth points on a regional economic basis, which could even extend across borders, then I want to point out the following to him. According to calculations, one can save R3 000 in creating one employment opportunity if one goes to a growth point. The hon. member would do well to do a little research into what it costs in the PWV area not to double the width of one tarred road but merely to widen it, and then to compare that with what it costs, say, to build a tarred road from point A to point B in Gazankulu. He will find out that it is cheaper to go and build a tarred road in Gazankulu.

But there is nothing at point A or point B.

But surely that is not what we are trying to achieve. [Interjections.] We must be realistic. We are not going to try to do anything in the middle of nowhere.

But you have done nothing.

Mr. Blaar Coetzee and Mr. Marais Steyn together published the magazine Fyngoud, and on one occasion Mr. Blaar Coetzee said to Mr. Marais Steyn: “Los my vuilgoed …” and I am tempted to say the same now. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it is perhaps fitting that I should rise just after the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt, because he and I together passed through deep waters with the consolidation wagon and that is probably why both of us are so “Nat” (wet).

†It is my privilege to represent East London City, the Fighting Port, in this House. I shall do my best to serve my constituency in the fine and indomitable spirit of its people, and to ensure that my voters end up being as satisfied with their choice as I was with that choice.

The planning and co-ordinating required to ensure peaceful co-existence and the evolutionary development of our diverse and changing plural society, is an ever-increasing complex and demanding challenge, for not only are we fate bound to our African continent but also bound to its timetable. I have no doubt, however, that we can meet this challenge successfully if we at all times adhere to, and put into practice, the principle of doing unto others only that which you would have them do unto you.

*In my view, the reality in which and with which we have to live, demands from us two undeniable requirements for survival: firstly, that all our different nations should join in building a common future in recognition of one another, and, secondly, that a constitutional, economic and social dispensation with which the majority of our total population is satisfied, should be fully evolved as soon as possible.

In view of these requirements I should like to single out those three elements which I regard as fundamental. The first is that a constitutional dispensation which makes provision for self-determination for every section of our population, should be finalized and implemented as soon as possible. In my view, Sir, the biggest obstacle facing us in this regard, is the misconception by some people that the expanding of the rights of one nation can only take place to the detriment and through the crowding out of the rights of other communities. In other words, the view that the realization of self-determination is like a seesaw, where the one side can only go up if the other side goes down. I believe that our biggest task is to eliminate this blunder and to allow the realization to take effect not only that nations can exercise their rights peacefully alongside one another, but also that if a nation does this in consultation with other nations, and having regard for their rights, the prosperity of the one nation goes hand in hand with the prosperity of the other.

The second aspect is perhaps even more urgent. Our economy must be developed as far as possible within the framework of democracy and the system of free enterprise, so that everyone can share in its prosperity to such an extent that the advantages of this system are shown to be superior to those of alternative systems, and the alternative systems shown up to be the illusions of prosperity they are. I believe that decentralized industrial development is the only basis upon which such economic development can take place. For the implementation of decentralization, certain aspects are, I believe, of importance. Firstly, Southern Africa must, despite its political dispensation, be developed as an economic unit on a regional basis rather than on the basis of state borders. Secondly, inter-state co-operation must take place on a basis of trust and common interest. Care must be taken that every participating State has industries established in its own territory, and that development does not take place in only one state while the other state serves only as a dormitory. To achieve this, and to prevent duplication, new methods of division of income must be devised. Where, for example, one town in one State serves as a commercial centre for the citizens of the other State, it must be investigated whether the sales and other taxes collected in that town cannot be divided on an inter-State basis, rather than to establish another commercial centre at great cost in the other State. Thirdly, although the role of the State must be limited as far as possible to its traditional function of creating the infrastructure and the climate in which the private sector must develop, the State will also, however, have to concentrate its attention to a greater extent on growth poles other than those that already exist, and create confidence in these new growth poles by way of a state presence, and, where other States are involved, by way of investment guarantees as well. Furthermore, these new growth poles will also have to be made more attractive through the granting of concessions and other benefits in the short term, and in the long term they will have to be made competitive with the existing growth poles as well. In the new growth poles the existing industries should be used as the point of departure for development and these, where applicable, should be developed before others are established.

In my constituency, for example, Sir, the existing motor and pineapple industries, as well as the use of our harbour, should serve as a point of departure. There should then be further development around these industries over a wide spectrum—as wide as possible—to ensure that a negative phase in one sector of the economy does not disrupt the regional economy as a whole. In addition, in my constituency in particular, the greatest possible emphasis must be placed on labour-intensive rather than capital-intensive industries.

The third main element I should like to single out is that it is also imperative that, together with the development of a constitutional and economic dispensation, there will be accelerated community development as well. Socio-economic development is associated by many people—perhaps in view of our own Afrikaner history, and sometimes completely out of context—with the acquisition of political rights. For any political dispensation to be acceptable it will therefore have to be based on the improvement of the living standards of all sections of the population. I believe that housing should be central to the process of uplifting standards of living, and not only in the Republic, but in its associated Black States as well. A decent dwelling forms the heart of a meaningful and happy family life. Happy families make for happy societies, and that in turn ensures a contented population.

The duty to provide proper housing, does not rest on the State alone. The private sector also has a significant role to play here. In view of the inevitable and ever-increasing costs, I believe that to induce the private sector to do this, the State may have to consider additional incentives, possibly by way of the deregularization of requirements and financial assistance, for example through tax concessions. In cases where the State does have to provide—and this will have to be extended to all cases where the individual in question cannot make provision privately—the process of providing housing on a far larger scale will have to be accelerated. The amount being voted at present is, quite simply, inadequate, although one realizes that it is the maximum permitted by the funds available. The means of the State are limited, and because that is so, alternative means of financing must be considered. One can, for example, consider a system related to the present bonus bond system, with which capital can be acquired.

The planning and implementation of this in our society must at all times be geared to providing every member of the population with an equal opportunity for a meaningful existence. The highest sacrifice is being made on our borders to enable us to achieve such a dispensation peacefully. Let us, then, not fail to do so within the country, and let us live in such a way that these sacrifices are not spurned.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for East London City touched on a fair number of matters in his short speech. It seems to me he is able to put 10 minutes to very good use.

Follow his example.

I am sure the hon. member will have a bright future in this House.

†If one turns to page 11 of the very interesting first report from the Office of the Prime Minister, one sees there is a section on security planning. It is stated that part of the function of the Security Planning Branch is the responsibility for working out total security strategies. It also has the function—

I think all hon. members are conscious of the fact that there is a national strategy. I now want to read from a document called “Nasionale doelwitte en die totale nasionale strategie”, which is a document, as I have gathered, that is given to officers in our Defence Force. In this document it is stated—

*This exposition is based on a formula of one Mr. Kline, an American strategist.

†We need to know what this total onslaught is. This document for the young officers tells us that the main source of the onslaught is communist; it is Marxist; it is Russian. This has been raised a number of times in this debate. In this document by the intelligence section of the S.A. Defence Force or the Security Planning Department, it is stated that Russia is—

Most people in this country hold the view that Russia is the greatest enemy we have and that Russia represents the greatest danger to us. However, in terms of this document that was issued to Defence Force officers last year, Egypt and Somalia were given as examples, and yet we all know that Russia has been kicked out of those countries. Not only that. We also know that Russia has many problems elsewhere as well, as in Poland and in Iran where they are very worried about the situation. Although the Russians have taken over in Afghanistan they also are experiencing serious problems there. In Portugal, Spain and Greece the communists have been outmanoeuvred and in France they have had another hiding. The Russians also experienced serious problems in Zimbabwe. The hon. the Prime Minister is always telling us about the great danger of Mr. Solodovnikov. I wonder if he knows that that gentleman has been given his “trekpas” because he has not been very successful. However, he was always held up to us as a great danger.

Under the heading of “national objectives” I also find this—

Mr. Chairman, what do we need in order to meet the total onslaught? We need a unity of purpose. I also want to quote in this regard from an editorial that appeared in The Cape Times. It reads as follows—

This Government wants unity of purpose in terms of our total onslaught. At the present moment, this Government is ruling with 40% of the White votes in this country. The HNP does not share the Government’s view in regard to the total onslaught and how to deal with it and neither do we in this party share the Government’s view in regard to the total onslaught. In fact, Sir, if there is a total onslaught on apartheid I want to be part of that total onslaught. In this country the Black community also raises queries in regard to what our unity of purpose is. Let me give an example. Let the hon. the Minister of Defence have conscription for all Indians, Coloureds and Blacks who have a level of education of Std. 6 and higher. We would have a conscientious objection problem here just as we had during the Second World War.

And you are part of it.

I am not part of it. [Interjections.] Let me tell that hon. Minister that I will do my national service. I am happy to do my national service, but I would want to do it in the medical corps. I am not afraid of doing national service. [Interjections.] I want to say, Sir, that conscientious objection from the Coloured, Indian and Black communities would be such a problem if there was conscription that the Government would have to resort to a volunteer army such as we had during the Second World War in order to deal with conscientious objections from Afrikaner nationalists.

Mr. Chairman, I want to deal now with paragraph 63(b) of the Prime Minister’s report, which reads—

How good is this Intelligence Service that we have in this country?

Very good indeed.

The hon. the Minister says that it is very good indeed. How much did his intelligence service know about what was going on in Soweto? We had to tell him that Soweto was going to explode. [Interjections.] Read the Cillié Commission report. Not only that, Sir. What a gaffe our intelligence services made in regard to Bishop Muzorewa in Zimbabwe! They misinformed the Government, and I believe this is a very serious matter.

And Johnnie was the only one in step?

I wonder for example whether our intelligence service in the Office of the Prime Minister is giving him interpreted assessments of the effect which the removal of squatters at Nyanga has on South Africa’s security. Is this service telling the Government that the use of fire-arms in shooting rioters is a matter which affects the security of the State? The hon. the Minister of Police looks surprised, but they just had terrible riots in London, Liverpool and Leeds …

What happened to the police there?

But not a single person was shot dead.

And how many of the policemen landed in hospital?

There were lots of our policemen in the hospital as well. The policemen there are trained how to handle rioters. [Interjections.]

Order!

I believe that we have to have decently interpreted intelligence in this country. Something else that we have to find out is how many people are in fact getting military training outside the country. Is it 600 or 6 000 or 16 000? Unless we can get some sort of indication … [Interjections.]

Ask your friends.

I have asked my friends, strangely enough, and they reckon it is less than 1 000.

Why then do you ask us?

Perhaps the hon. the Minister has better information. [Interjections.]

How is the intelligence interpreted? This is the crunch issue. Are the people in the Prime Minister’s Office who are interpreting intelligence to him, people who have a conspiratorial view of history a la S. E. D. Brown, Ivor Benson and Bill Chalmers? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, while listening to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North I was reminded of the saying, keep quiet and people will think you are a fool; get up and speak and they will know you are a fool. I should like to come back to the hon. member at a later stage, but now I am going to deal with the speech of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

*In the first place, I want to tell him that the planning activities we are discussing are related to political, physical, economic, scientific and social aspects. I think we should first state certain premises, for there are fundamental differences in approach, and if we do not define those clearly, we shall be talking at cross purposes. It is very clear that in discussing these particular planning functions, the hon. members of the official Opposition proceed from a specific ideological point of view which is diametrically opposed to the one the Government subscribes to.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition and his party see South Africa through Western glasses. He judges South Africa by norms and standards which apply in a Western country and he conveniently forgets that the greater part of the population actually reflects the standards, norms and development of the Third World. The hon. leader will agree with me that this is factually true. Even in this debate, the hon. leader and his party actually pay lip service to the concept of the plural composition of our population, but immediately afterwards, proceeding from their condemnation of the Government’s policy, its standpoints and activities, they lapse into liberal philosophy which elevates individual rights above group rights. Let me tell the hon. leader that this is the fundamental difference between us. The hon. leader says, quite rightly, that one of the major or dominant factors in our political life in this country is the question of domination. He formulated it by saying that White people feared it and Black people despised it. The fact remains that the hon. leader uses the group identification as the basis of his argument, and he must agree with that.

The hon. leader refuses to accept that the diversity of groups of which this population is composed at the same time represents the basis of the conflict potential inherent in this society. Does he deny that? I see that he is shaking his head. So he does not deny it. He does not deny it when he speaks, but when he formulates, he does not want to take it as a point of departure for regulating society. He admits it, but when he has to formulate a constitutional policy for the country and when he has to discuss a model, every model and principle which he propagates rebels against acceptance of the fact that our population is composed of a diversity of groups. That standpoint and philosophy are reflected in the contributions made by the hon. members for Constantia and Pietermaritzburg North. In this regard I just want to say the following to the hon. members. Their recipe for civil rights, and I take it of individual rights as well, is a Western one. If they want to apply it in South Africa, there is only one inevitable conclusion to be drawn, and that is that they are propagating one man, one vote in a unitary state. It is no use the hon. member Prof. Olivier shaking his head. He must please bring theory and practice together for once and consider the results.

I want to go further and make a few fundamental statements. In my view, it is not possible to see the constitutional, economic, social and physical development of a country in isolation. All these activities have a crucial influence on one another. Surely this is so. I should like to start there. There is no one in this House who does not accept that change or reform in each of these fields or crucial activities is essential for the country. There is no one who does not accept this. This Government has committed itself to change in each of these fields. It has also laid down conditions, conditions which the hon. leader and his party do not want to comply with or give attention to. The best example of this is the contribution of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North, who has not the vaguest idea of the threat, not only to South Africa, but also to South Africa as a cog in the total strategy of communist expansionism all over the world.

You are the best allies they have got.

But I am not actively involved in it, as the hon. member is. If this process of change is to be constitutional, it has to take place in a climate of stability and order. I know there are people who wish to see a different process of change in the country. There are people who propagate violence, revolt and revolution as a method of changing this society and of changing the economic system that applies here.

Is that why our fingerprints are required? [Interjections.]

Some people have to have their fingerprints taken because they cannot write. I am speaking specifically of the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North. I just want to tell him in all fairness that if we are to ensure stability and order in the country so that reform and change may take place, we have to fight the forces of revolt and revolution.

I want to ask the hon. members opposite whether they do not want to dissociate themselves from the indirect methods which are being used and which must eventually lead to a state of disorder. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition once again whether he will not rise for once and take sides, not only against the UN, but also against the fellow-travellers inside our country’s borders who are propagating the same action against our fatherland as the UN. If we do not want to do that, we must not pay lip service in this House to constitutional reform in the country, for when our words and our actions contradict one another, we are not making any contribution to the reform we are propagating.

Then I wish to tell the hon. the Leader of the Opposition that the process of reform is in the first place a process of parliamentary reform. I repeat that the hon. leader and his party are playing with fire in wanting to continue their processes and methods of reform outside Parliament.

Order! I am sorry, but the hon. the Minister’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to allow the hon. the Minister to proceed with his speech.

Thank you. Sir, the Government recognizes the need for creating instruments within which the process of negotiation for change can take place. After all, the Government is not insensitive to the fact that the greater part of the population of the country is not represented in this House. That is the history of South Africa. However, the Government has created instruments within which that process can take place. I do not want to dwell on them at any length, but I want to tell the hon. members that the process of negotiation, consultation and discussion with the population groups in the country has never been more comprehensive and more intensive than they are under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister at this very moment. I challenge any hon. member to dispute that fact.

There is a final remark I wish to make in this connection. We shall not find the answer if we are not disposed to find a solution. We shall not find it as long as we turn this House into a platform and a forum for accusing the Government of oppressing others. If we wish, we can continue our game, but we must realize what its inevitable consequences will be.

More seats for our party.

I know the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North is a slow developer. I also know that it is the fate of the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to have this hon. member. He did not choose the hon. member. He just got him. [Interjections.]

Mr. Chairman, surely it is a fact that the complexity and the diversity of the problems we have to live with today—and not only we, but other countries of the world as well—are making enormous and increasing demands on the effectiveness of the State machinery. The hon. member spoke about this. Much more than before and during the war, surely, industrialization, urbanization, the networks of mutual relationships between the development agencies in our country—just as in other countries—as well as the public, the semi-public and the private sectors have completely destroyed this capacity for free decision-making and action in isolation. Surely the wide, open world which we talked about—literally and figuratively—is a luxury of the past. This brings me to the hon. member for Yeoville.

†The hon. member for Yeoville said that we subscribed to the principle of a free enterprise economy. We also recognize, however, the realistic nature of the economy of South Africa, which I do not want to discuss. Then, however, the hon. member goes further and says he gets the impression that in view of the planning activities of the office of the hon. the Prime Minister it might be interpreted as centralized control of the economy.

A planned society.

Or a planned society. The point is, however, that the hon. member raised the issue because he suggested that the one was in conflict with the other. I want to put a pertinent question to him. Does he not agree that there should be co-ordination in this country?

Between whom and whom?

Between you and Boraine, for example. [Interjections.]

I think that if the hon. member for Yeoville could first find the hon. member for Houghton and then co-ordinate her …

You asked the question.

No, wait a minute. Should there not be co-ordination between the private and the public sectors with regard to economic planning?

Yes.

Is it not essential that there should be co-ordination between the private and the public sectors and between Government departments themselves with regard to the social planning of the country?

I agree.

Scientific coordination?

Yes, I agree.

Political co-ordination?

Yes.

In all fairness to the hon. member for Yeoville I now want to know why he suggests, then, that the planning function is not the co-ordination of policy determination, but that its purpose is to plan the country, and to plan it in an exact and rigorous way?

You are putting words into my mouth.

No, those were perhaps not the hon. member’s exact words, but it is the inevitable conclusion to be drawn from the fact that he complains about it. Surely it is not true. I believe that the careful co-ordination of planning and of action by all the development agencies, as well as by the Government agencies, semi-public sectors and the private sector, is of vital importance if we are to achieve our objective of utilizing scarce resources for the prosperity of the entire population of the country. The hon. member is aware of that. I do not have to say it to him. Surely South Africa does not have the means, in terms of capital, human resources and raw materials, to meet all the needs of all the people at the same time and to satisfy their expectations at the same time. Surely the hon. member knows that is not possible. Therefore, because it is not possible, there must be a process of determining priorities. How are we going to achieve that if we do not co-ordinate the planning functions?

Without reproaching the hon. member, I wish to request him not to look for sinister motives in the planning function.

You see sinister things in what I said.

Yes, but the hon. member said it.

No, the hon. the Minister is putting words into my mouth which I did not use.

No, I am not. The hon. member talks about the metropolitan areas, but he knows that it is the declared policy of the Government that the metropolitan areas have a material and important role to play in economic planning. When we talk about the decentralization of economic activities, surely that means moving something from one place to another. After all, the growth and development are taking place in the metropolises and those metropolises must afford the rest; in other words, when we speak about deconcentration and decentralization, we are not disputing the fact that the metropolises have to grow. On the other hand, it is also true, and the hon. member will concede this to me, that a major part of the growth processes and development in the metropolises can also be attributed to the direct and indirect subsidizing of services in those metropolises.

We pay the tax.

Why is the hon. member prepared to pay tax for the metropolises, but not for the other areas? The hon. member says that if we have to decentralize, the taxpayer has to pay for it. Of course that is true, but does he not also pay for the development and the economic growth of the metropolises?

Who says we will not pay?

No, just wait a minute.

I have read what the hon. the Prime Minister said. He wants to take it away from us.

I am coming to that. Just give me a chance. With regard to the people who support the hon. member, the people who support his party financially—and now I am not talking about the hon. member himself, because I know that his standpoint in respect of the economic system is completely different from that of the rest of his party—I want to ask the hon. member whether subsidizing is not an intervention in the economy. Is it not so? Does the hon. member for Yeoville agree with me that there should be a geographic distribution of economic activities for economic reasons?

Yes.

The hon. member says “yes”. Very well.

To some extent.

Yes, the hon. member says “yes”. Does the hon. member agree with me that as long as the concentration in the big metropolitan areas remains as it is because of the direct and indirect subsidizing of public services within the metropolis, it militates against the decentralized development programme?

No.

Order! I am sorry, but the hon. the Minister’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I rise merely to give the hon. the Minister the opportunity to continue his speech.

Thank you. That is why I say that there is a basic contradiction in what has been happening to us up to now.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask the hon. the Minister whether the factual statement that we are debating is the hon. the Prime Minister’s statement? I want to quote it so that the hon. the Minister can deal with it. The hon. the Prime Minister says that the bigger metropolitan areas must gradually switch from subsidized tariffs for services and facilities to full cost allocation. That means that we must pay the full cost of roads, transport and housing and that the training concessions must be taken away for labour. All the concessions would disappear if one is in a PWV area.

The point is valid, i.e. that the Government believes that if one wants decentralization to succeed geographically, one must have a process of phasing out the subsidizing of the services the hon. member is talking about.

But you take our taxes.

The hon. member must just give me a chance. With the natural built-in growth momentum of the metropolises and with the subsidies that are also paid to them in respect of housing, transport and infrastructure services, what chance is there of geographically developing the rest of the country? There must be no doubt about that: It is the standpoint of the Government that it must happen. What I cannot understand about the hon. member, however, is that he is prepared to pay taxes for subsidizing the metropolises, but not the other geographic areas of the country.

We pay for the whole country.

I have a suspicion that the hon. member for Yeoville should declare his interests. His interests lie with the enterprises in the metropolises. However, South Africa’s interests lie elsewhere as well. [Interjections.]

It is the people who pay tax in South Africa …

The interests of South Africa require that the metropolises as well as the rest of the country must develop.

The whole country must develop.

Before my time expires, I should like to congratulate the hon. member for East London City and the hon. member for Kroonstad on their maiden speeches. I know their regions very well and I was in the region of the hon. member for Kroonstad only last week. I do not doubt that those two hon. members will make a significant contribution to the activities of this House. I also want to thank the hon. member for Klerksdorp and the hon. member Mr. Van der Walt for their contributions.

I come now to the hon. member for Constantia. Look what he says, and he wants us to take cognizance of it! He says that 150 years ago, the Western Cape was economically predominant. I have no argument with that statement. However, he says that this region is now lagging behind the other areas in terms of its growth rate. When did this hon. member wake up? Does he not know about the discovery of diamonds and gold? Is he not aware of that? Does the hon. member not know that economically speaking, this country has undergone a metamorphosis since the Second World War? Does he not know that South Africa has developed into an industrial country? Does he not know that the industrial development depends on raw materials that are found in areas where people live?

What mines are there in Durban?

Let us examine the second statement he makes in connection with the labour policy in the Western Cape. I do not want to discuss it now, I just want to raise one point in that connection. The hon. member says that the Western Cape is lagging behind in the economic field because Black people cannot be employed here to the extent which he advocates. Let us test the hon. member’s statement in all fairness. The hon. member for East London City will tell him that all the Black people who can possibly be employed live in his area. The hon. member must then also ask the hon. member for East London City whether the border area there has been growing more or less rapidly than the Western Cape.

[Inaudible.]

That hon. member must not interpret the remarks of the hon. member for Constantia because I am not talking to him now. Furthermore, the hon. member for Constantia wants to join the ranks of priests and he talks about the immorality of the policy. Does the hon. member realize that if the Minister of Community Development had to provide housing at the same rate as the population increase, it would cost him R8 000 million up to the end of this decade? Is he suggesting that we are able to do that? What is more, if the hon. member agrees that we do not have the financial means to do that, is it his contention that it would be more moral to allow people to live as squatters rather than to let them go back to their homelands? What is his conception of morality?

Where do they come from?

I shall answer that. Does the hon. member know that at the Cape Town office alone, 2 092 unemployed Coloured people are registered? Does the hon. member know what the situation is in the whole of the Western Cape? Does he not know that 80% of the Coloured people in the country live here in the Western Cape?

He does not even want us to build houses for them.

Furthermore, I would advise the hon. member to visit the Rand area again, because I understand that the greatest problem with which Coloured people are faced in the PWV area is housing, because of the fact that they have left the Western Cape to go and work on the Rand.

The rate of population increase among Coloured people in the PWV area is also much higher than in the Western Cape. Where is his sense of morality towards the Coloured people, or do only the Black people in this country have rights? [Interjections.]

Now I come to hon. members who spoke about regional development. What are we doing when it comes to the planning of this? I do not intend to reply to questions put to me about other hon. Ministers’ departments. Their votes will be dealt with and the questions can then be put to them directly. However, planning is an all-embracing function, so we are concerned with macro-planning and not with specific details. So I do not want to enter other people’s fields.

Even though we differ politically, do we agree about the need for co-operation with independent countries?

†I ask the hon. member for Houghton: Do we agree on that?

Yes.

The lady says “yes”; so she agrees.

That is very strange. She never agrees about anything.

Does the hon. member also agree that the economic interests of the various countries and regions are integrated?

Of course, yes.

The hon. member is not quarrelling with me, but her benchmate is quarrelling with me about this. She was not here at the time, but he quarrelled with me about this. However, I can understand her dilemma. There is always a friendly chat between those two members sitting next to each other. It seems to me that there is greater camaraderie between the other two hon. members than between her and the hon. member for Yeoville, because they do not seem to agree with each other.

What is your position in the Broederbond now?

Kowie, he has taken your place.

The hon. the Prime Minister says the concept of a confederation is suited to the circumstances of South Africa and Southern Africa and therefore it deserves the support of every member of the population, because the economic interdependence of States and regions in Southern Africa forms the basis for co-operation and a method of stabilizing the region. What else are we doing? Surely we are stabilizing the southern part of Africa so that it may serve as a buffer against the threat which the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg North does not understand.

Order! I am sorry, but the hon. the Minister’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. the Minister a chance to complete his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member. What is the Government doing now? It is working on methods for achieving a geographic distribution of economic activities. [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister is making a comprehensive speech and I think the House ought to give him a chance to complete his speech without interruption.

After all, we realize that if countries wish to be autonomous, if they wish to have the right to take their own decisions as sovereign states, it is essential that they be economically strengthened. Why then should we not help to maintain the constitutional status of countries by establishing economic instruments? Surely this is what the discussion is all about. The new approach to economic regional development and planning and the co-operation that goes with it are so important to every local community that we should actually travel there from here and propagate it there.

Let us consider the facts. What are the objectives of a regional development policy? They are known. In my opinion, there are two. In the first place, for economic reasons, we must obtain a better geographic distribution of economic activities. If, at the same time, this can also underpin the constitutional development of countries, surely that is an additional benefit. The second objective is the promotion of economic development in or near the national and independent States in Southern Africa.

The hon. the Leader of the Opposition was being quite reasonable when he asked me whether we were still going to deal with the problem of squatting. Of course we are going to do so. The Minister of Co-operation and Development outlined his programme for the Western Cape the other day. The programme involves the erection of 1 700 houses, 30 of them being completed every day. Surely the hon. the Minister is doing what he can in the short term to meet the immediate needs. However, must we only deal with squatters, or must we develop the country economically by means of geographic distribution?

You must not get so excited.

But it was a silly question.

It was a stupid question which the hon. leader asked; after all, he used to be an academic. Let us first consider in all fairness what has happened. What has happened up to now? I am going to deal with it very briefly, for I do not have much time. In the manufacturing industry, three-quarters of the net production and employment is in the four metropolises of the country, with all the social and other problems arising from that. But not only do we find that production and employment in four metropolises. The PWV area completely dominates the other three areas.

So what?

Oh please, I really cannot handle a running commentary by the hon. member for Houghton. The hon. member for Constantia complained about the fact that the Western Cape was lagging behind. He found superficial reasons for this. Has the Government not taken steps in an attempt to correct the imbalance in economic development and growth rates?

It has not succeeded.

Is the hon. member not aware of the fact that the development at Atlantis, as a process of deconcentration of the urban area, is an attempt to correct the imbalance? Is the hon. member not aware of the fact that the Koeberg Power Station is being built because of the disparity in electric tariffs because the power stations are situated far from the city? Does the hon. member not understand what it is all about?

Sishen-Saldanha.

Does the hon. member not understand why we built the Sishen-Saldanha railway line? Does the hon. member not understand why the Theewaterskloof Water Scheme was built? With great respect, is the hon. member living in a total geographic and intellectual vacuum?

Let us forget about our political ideology now. I want the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to listen to me. 13% and 18% of the revenue of the national and the independent States respectively is generated within their own territories. Forget about the politics of this for the moment. They are able to accommodate 28% of the new entrants to the labour market. I want to ask the hon. the Leader of the Opposition once again: In view of the problems—which he ought to know better than any other member—caused by urbanization and industrialization in a few limited areas, is it not essential that we develop the resources of those particular areas?

[Inaudible.]

Then there is something I would like the hon. the Leader of the Opposition to tell the members of his party. He must not say that we have regional development plans for ideological reasons alone. I want to plead with the hon. leader, because this is going to affect him as well. He thinks it is going to affect only us, but it is going to affect him too. Regional development has economic implications, but constitutional implications as well. I would not argue about this for a moment, but a confederal dispensation which meets certain conditions can be justified on both grounds. The conditions are, firstly, recognition of the political sovereignty of various States, but at the same time of their economic interdependence; secondly, the supplementing of the development needs of the various States in the financial, economic, technical and other spheres, where necessary; thirdly, the rationalization of a development programme within a regional context to avoid unnecessary duplication of development within the region itself. In my view, this requires a specific strategy. I contend that the elements in that development strategy on a regional basis follows a process which requires that development be programmed. Surveys must be made of the potential and of the defects in the potential so that we may know exactly what the potential is in specific regions and also what the inhibiting factors are. Secondly, there is the development and formulation of conventional forms of development and co-operation such as customs agreements, monetary agreements, agricultural co-operation and co-operation with regard to health and tourism, with aid to the Black States forming part of this strategy. The hon. member will agree with me that the Republic is not able, financially and otherwise, and in terms of trained labour, to make all these things available to the Black States to the extent to which they expect us to do so. Therefore the pool of money or finances and of expertise has to be expanded. The consolidation of land of Black States is another element. There is also the decentralization of industry and the promotion of co-operation projects. We all accept the principle that where the country is now divided into economic regions for these purposes, in planning those regions we need not be bound, firstly, by provincial boundaries, and secondly, with regard to the identification of economic development regions on the borders of States. For this reason, the top priority is the development of the central regions of those States, so that we may prevent the problem which the hon. the Leader of the Opposition referred to, i.e. over-concentration in the cities. A second priority is that it should take place on the borders of States, and thirdly, it should extend beyond the borders of States in the form of co-operation projects. I would have thought that we would have the unanimous support of all the hon. members in this House in doing this. It is fundamentally concerned with the concept which I mentioned at the beginning, namely that order and stability are essential conditions, and that among the conditions for order and stability are economic development and economic strength and ability. [Time expired.)

Vote agreed to.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move—

At the outset I should like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the hon. Opposition for their willingness to co-operate in taking this Bill, as well as the one which will follow it, through their various stages today. In the course of my speech I shall explain why this is necessary. In the meantime, however, I should like to place my appreciation on record.

†Mr. Speaker, the year 1981 is going to be a special year in the history of the South African Indian community. In this year, 121 years after the arrival of the first Indians in South Africa as indentured labourers on the sugar plantations in Natal and 20 years after the acceptance of this population group as a permanent section of the South African community, they will be going to the polls on 4 November 1981 to elect their own representatives. From that day on the Indian community will for the first time be represented on the South African Indian Council by their leaders elected by the enfranchised members of the community.

The purpose of the Bill now before the House is to amend certain electoral procedures as laid down in the Electoral Act for Indians, 1977, so that the election of the members of the South African Indian Council on 4 November 1981 can be conducted more effectively.

I shall now deal with the different clauses of the Bill.

It is proposed in clause 1 that the existing system of four-monthly supplementary registration of voters to supplement the voters’ lists compiled after a general registration of voters, be replaced by a system of continuous registration of voters which will have the effect that the aforementioned voters’ lists will then be adjusted monthly by the inclusion of the names of the voters at their new addresses, of new voters—in other words, persons who have reached the age of 18 years—and by the deletion of the names of departed and deceased voters.

Section 10 of the Electoral Act for Indians, 1977, provides for the division in which a voter is to be registered. In subsection (4) provision is made for the so-called “crow fly” principle in respect of Indians who reside in independent States. In clause 2 it is merely proposed that subsection (4) be amended to make provision for Indians who have their homes in independent States to be registered in accordance with the “crow fly” principle in the division in which is situated the magistrate’s office nearest to their homes in the province of which a particular part became the part of the independent State in question in which they have their homes. It is also proposed that a similar provision be adopted in respect of Indians who have their homes on land which becomes part of an independent State.

According to the existing provisions it is possible that the nearest magistrate’s office in the Republic to the places of residence of Indian voters in independent States is situated in a province other than the province of which the relevant area where they have their homes was previously a part. For example, voters who were originally registered as residents of the former Mafeking, will now, in accordance with the existing provisions, have to register at the magistrate’s office Zeerust in the Transvaal in the electoral division of North West Transvaal while they were registered as voters in the Cape in the electoral division of North West Cape before Mafeking was transferred to Bophuthatswana. By the proposed amendment the voters concerned will be registered at the magistrate’s office Vryburg in the province of the Cape of Good Hope in the electoral division of North West Cape, i.e. the electoral division in which they were previously registered as voters.

In terms of section 15 of the Electoral Act for Indians, 1977, the electoral officer must, where the name of any person has inadvertently been omitted or removed from the voters’ list, or has been erroneously enumerated in an incorrect voters’ list or under a wrong polling district, rectify such errors up to 16h00 on the seventh day before polling day. In clause 4 provision is made that electoral officers shall furnish returning officers, candidates and authorized representatives of political parties with a return of such amendments.

Clauses 5 and 6 of the Bill contain consequential amendments due to the proposed system of continuous registration of voters that will inevitably bring about the continuous adjustment and amendment of the voters’ lists.

*In order to postpone for as long as possible the closing date of voters’ lists so as to afford voters the opportunity to register and report any changes of address, clause 7 provides that the voters’ lists shall close on the last day of the month immediately preceeding the month in which the election proclamation is issued. As a result of the proposed amendment the voters’ lists which will be valid for the election on 4 November will be those lists which close on 31 August 1981.

Section 31(1)(a) of the Electoral Act for Indians provides that the nomination court for the nomination of candidates will sit in the electoral divisions concerned. In large urban areas the offices of electroal officers and magistrates are situated at central points in those cities. Most of the returning officers are appointed from the staff of these offices and the election is conducted from these offices. For practical reasons clause 8 consequently provides that nomination courts will also be able to sit outside an electoral division at the most central points in the relevant cities, in the offices of the returning officers.

In clause 9 it is proposed that the deposit or security by or on behalf of the nominated candidate in an electoral division where an election is to be held be reduced from R600 to R400 to bring it into line with the amount prescribed for Parliamentary elections.

Furthermore, provision is being made in clause 10 for a notice to be mailed before election day to each voter at his registered address in which shall be specified, inter alia, the voter’s serial number, the situation of the polling station, etc. The notice shall also caution the voter to bring with him his identity document or other proof of identity when visiting a polling station.

Clauses 11 and 13 supplement the provisions in respect of proof of identity in that the identity of a voter who is unable to produce one of the prescribed proofs of identity may be established by means of a prescribed affidavit by another voter.

Mr. Speaker, as a purely technical measure which will improve the functioning of the existing Electoral Act for Indians, we on this side of the House have no problems worth mentioning with this Bill. The idea of an ongoing registration of voters is one which already forms part of the registration system for White voters and, in my opinion, is a system which works reasonably well. The effect of the Bill, as I read it, is furthermore that provision is being made for a later closing date for the registration of voters. As the hon. the Minister indicated in his introductory speech as well, that closing date will in point of fact be far later—in fact, at the end of August. Consequently a shorter period between the closing date for the registration of voters and the holding of the election is now being made possible. In general this development is, of course, a good one, for it enables more voters to participate in this election, which, it is to be hoped, will take place on 4 November.

However there is a potentially negative effect, which, although it will occur only once, nevertheless in my opinion deserves the attention of the hon. the Minister and we should like to hear his standpoint in this regard. In particular we shall want to hear whether he has spoken to Indian representatives in that regard. The hon. the Minister will know that, in any event as far as White political parties are concerned, the closing date for voters’ rolls before an election is a matter of great importance. I specifically mention White political parties since the level at which elections in White politics is being fought has reached a high degree of professionalism, apparently, to put it this way, because we have something to fight about and this could hardly be said of the Indian population or the Coloureds in the present dispensation. A measure is now being submitted here which extends the period for registration, and I want to make the submission that it is desirable to do so this once, but that it may, at least theoretically, benefit one political group at the expense of another if in the case of the Indian population voter registration is the strong political weapon which it is in fact in White politics. Hon. members will know what I am talking about.

The date on which a voters’ roll closes is important, for all of us know that when an election is in the offing, people do their best to register persons as voters. The effect of the amendment being proposed here is that this closing date is now in fact being stipulated at a stage when no one can do anything about it. Theoretically it could be the case—I do not know whether this is of practical interest—that those who relied on the status quo, who relied on the existing dispensation, may have done their best to register voters by the closing date which would have been applicable under the old dispensation and that other persons who came late in terms of the old dispensation, would now be benefitted or at least put on a par with the first group and in that sense are, therefore, being benefitted at the expense of the other. The fact is, of course, that the date in question is now 31 August 1981, as the hon. the Minister has also indicated. Consequently this is not something which can be changed very much. I consider this to be a limited problem because it is, of course, a problem which will occur only once.

Clause 2 concerns Indians living in the territories of independent and future independent States. The provision being made in the amending Bill in this regard is once again similar to the provisions prescribed in the Electoral Act for Whites. Moreover, the holding of a nomination court outside the constituency for which nominations are submitted has for a long time now been the practice in White politics, and in the nature of the matter is a meaningful arrangement.

Of the other provisions which comprise this amending Bill, there is only one to which I should like to refer, viz. the reduction in the required election deposit from R600 to R400. This brings this provision into line with the requirements of the White Electoral Act. It is, of course, just as well that anything which stands in the way of democracy must be minimized as far as possible if it cannot be eliminated completely. In this regard one inadvertently calls to mind the requirement of the submission of 300 signatures in terms of the White Electoral Act, something which in my opinion is a blot on the democratic process in South Africa.

Why do you have to raise that again now?

One hopes that the people of colour in South Africa will be spared that.

†When we on this side of the House indicate to the hon. the Minister that we shall not oppose this legislation, we do it with mixed feelings. On the one hand it seems clear that this Bill is part of the process of preparation for the election of members to the Indian Council, something for which this party has been asking for a number of years. We have always felt that the Indian Council offered a hopelessly inadequate form of political representation but that, so long as we have to live with it, we should at least have the members of this body elected rather than appointed, indirectly elected or partially elected and partially appointed. The election which is hopefully to take place in early November is an event for which we have had to wait for a very long time indeed. I am not aware of any other body of politicians that has been granted exemption from the agony of an election for as long as the Indian Council has. The life of this body has now been extended for so long that people can hardly remember how this body was originally constituted. The election for which this Bill prepares has been postponed so often that it hardly makes a difference anymore. In fact, I fear that one of the problems the hon. the Minister will have to wrestle with in the coming months—it is obviously not all his fault, but partly a problem he has inherited from other Ministers and other departments—is that the individuals who have to submit their names for election on 4 November will have no idea how long their term of office will be. In fact, it may well turn out to be an extremely short term; that is, if the Presidents Council goes about its business as fast as possible, as one hopes it will, and if some kind of solution is found soon.

We have the same problem here.

Yes. As I have said, I believe that that could very well turn out to be a problem.

This is a step which at least represents some progress in what is otherwise in my submission a fairly sorry history of democratic representation for the Indian community. Because it is such a step, we shall not oppose it but are prepared to give it our support.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great calm, that I rise here this evening after the hon. member for Green Point has spoken. I do not want to miss my opportunity now, since the official Opposition, as well as the NRP, have indicated that they will have no objection if the hon. the Minister wishes to pilot the Bill through all three stages this evening. Consequently I, too, want to make my contribution tonight in this exceptional atmosphere of tranquility and serenity now prevailing in this House.

I understand why, towards the end of his speech, the hon. member for Green Point had at least to qualify why they did not in the first place agree with the principle of the legislation. One cannot take it amiss of the hon. member for doing this. The basic principles of his party are such that they could not agree with the principles of the original legislation.

As far as the legislation itself and the contents of the legal amendments are concerned, I want to submit to the hon. the Minister that the Indian community has had the benefit of our using the White’s Electoral Act as a basis, together with the fact that we have had all the various commissions appointed by Parliament in the past to investigate into the matter. Accordingly this Bill has the advantage of the many years of experience that we have gained in White politics. That is why I believe that the Bill under discussion is very effective and that it is possible to derive a great deal from it. Furthermore, I just want to point out that the reduction of the amount from R600 to R400 meets with general approval. The hon. member for Green Point remarked on the question of the 300 signatures, which is not included here. My view is that there is a considerable number of advantages as well as disadvantages attached to the question of the 300 signatures. It is probable that the hon. the Minister will at a later stage create another opportunity for us to discuss that matter again. I do not believe that one can simply dismiss it without further ado. Of course one understands the problems arising out of it. Whatever the case, I should like to assure the hon. the Minister that we are in complete agreement as regards this amending Bill. However, like the hon. member for Green Point, I, too, wish to add certain marginal notes concerning our view of the specific principle of the legislation.

The election of the new Indian Council will take place on 4 November this year. Well, as we all know, November is the month of the constellation of Scorpio. Interestingly enough, my thoughts strayed to 5 November, the day known as Guy Fawkes Day. This induced me to do some reading on the subject of Guy Fawkes. Guy Fawkes was a young man of 35 years, a man who, if the judgment of history is correct, was not incompetent, but possessed exceptional talents and was consequently used for the special task of blowing up not only the Parliament of Westminster, but also the fine things which are part and parcel of a Parliament. That was in the year 1505.

When dealing with this legislation, and if Opposition parties differ on it in principle, but have nevertheless, as has been the case this evening, been able to succeed in focusing on its positive aspects, if only for a short while, then we, too, would do well to learn the lesson from the example to which I referred, viz. that a man with good intentions, a person with exceptional qualities, could nevertheless eventually become a Guy Fawkes. Consequently I trust that when we are going to be discussing and negotiating the political dispensation in South Africa, we shall never allow ourselves to be misled into becoming a Guy Fawkes irrespective of how fiery or emotional that discussion may become. This is my hope for all of us here, for hon. members of the Opposition as well.

Finally I want to say that this Bill once again focuses political thinking on the Indian situation in Southern Africa and I think it will always be as well when doing so, to focus on the Indian communities of the rest of the world as well. Then, I think, we can say to ourselves that, despite many problems, we have really come a very long way. That is why I say to the hon. the Minister that we gladly support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, we of the NRP support this Bill and we are delighted that at long last we are going to have a fully elected council. This is something that we in this party have been fighting for for a long time. The terms of the Bill bring the Indian Electoral Act into accordance with Act No. 45 of 1979, which is the Electoral Act for the White community. In so far as the Bill itself is concerned, I do not have very much in the way of comment to make except in respect of clause 2. Generally the hon. the Minister who is now handling Indian Affairs öas a good imagination, but I feel this time he slipped up.

Very seriously.

Very seriously indeed, because it states in clause 2 that any Indian who is living out of the country must be registered in the division which is the nearest to his home “as the crow flies.” With regard to the Indian community surely it should have been “as the Indian mynah flies”.

But as I say, we do support the Bill, and I should like to take this opportunity to say a few words in general because for a long time my function in Natal has been to handle the provincial affairs of the Indian community. At this stage I should like to make an appeal to the Indian community to support these elections. There has been a great deal of opposition by various reactionary groups—I am using the word “reactionary” in the commonly accepted meaning and not the academic meaning—and I really do believe that the Indian community can do themselves a very, very great service indeed by having this elected council and giving a good percentage poll. In the past, I must concede, the credibility of the Indian council has been in some doubt because it was to all intents and purposes largely a nominated body. But even as a nominated body the Indian council has done a considerable amount of good for their community. I should like to quote a couple of examples of what they have been doing because I do not think many people appreciate the work that has been done, even by the partially elected and partially nominated Indian council.

The first point I should like to make, which is a star as far as the Indian community is concerned, is the proclamation in respect of Cato Manor. This is something that I believe was a direct effort on the part of the Indian council and the Indian community are generally very grateful about Cato Manor being reproclaimed for the Indian community. Again, I believe that the reduction of the backlog in Indian housing, although still very serious, has been handled more expeditiously because of the continual pressure of the Indian Council. I give them credit for a great deal of what has been done to alleviate their housing problem.

Another point which is of great importance to the Indian community is the Grey Street set-up, and the Indian Council is and has been working very, very hard in this regard. I believe that in due course this situation will resolve itself to the satisfaction of the Indian community.

In agriculture the Indian Council have been responsible for ensuring that loans are available for both Indian and White farmers. They have also, among many other things, been exerting pressure in regard to the central business districts. However, I do not want to take up the time of the House by discussing too many items. I have given these examples to indicate that even the nominated body has served a useful purpose.

Once there is a truly elected body, I believe their credibility should be beyond doubt. One of the problems the Government has had—we in Natal also had this problem—was to ascertain who really are the leaders in the Indian community.

The legitimate Indian leaders.

Precisely, the legitimate leaders. There have always been a number of people who have put themselves forward as leaders. It has been suggested that certain leaders who have been nominated by State departments as representatives of the Indian community were not actually the leaders. This now is, in my opinion, the opportunity that the Indians and everybody else have been waiting for in order to find out who the true leaders of the Indian community are. As far as we are concerned, we are delighted to know that this will now come about.

There are some who will oppose this election, for example the Indian National Congress and one or two other organizations, but those who have the attitude of “all or nothing”, of “one man, one vote” on a common roll for example, are not going to support this election because they cannot have their ideal. That, in my view, is being unrealistic, because I believe this is real material progress. I also believe that any real progress is an advantage. There is an old saying that the longest journey starts with the first step, and there is a further point one could add to that, namely that you can only get to the end of the trip if you take a few more steps. If, therefore, people boycott this election, I do not believe that they are serving their community but are in fact acting to the detriment of their community. As a Natalian who has worked for years with the Indian community, I believe in their best interest, I would appeal to them to support the election on November 4. I might add in passing that I believe it was very wise to provide in the Bill for the Minister to proclaim the date for registration a little later, because as a consequence of the boycott talk, a lot of people did not register. This will now give them an opportunity to register at a later date.

On behalf of my party I therefore support the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, with this Bill the final steps are being taken to prepare for the first real election of the Indian Council. Interesting enough, there seems to be an impression, not only among hon. members in this House but also among the public, that it is the Government that has been procrastinating in having an election. In The Cape Times today there appears a report datelined Durban. It probably emanated from the last meeting of the S.A. Indian Council. For anyone who can read between the lines, the following quotation from that report should prove quite interesting—

What newspaper was that?

This was in The Cape Times, but it probably also appeared in The Mercury—

This was a deputation that visited the hon. the Prime Minister some time ago—I do not know the date—and also the hon. the Minister of Internal Affairs—

This particular paragraph of the report indicates that the deputation came forward with a certain plea. Why was the hon. the Prime Minister, however, adamant that the election should go on? Is it not true that this deputation from the S.A. Indian Council came to request that the election should once again be delayed? On how many visits now has the executive of the S.A. Indian Council appealed for the election to be delayed still further?

Tell us.

Why did they do it?

Because the pleas came from the Indians themselves. That is why it was delayed time after time. When, last year, the then hon. Minister of Community Development, Mr. Marais Steyn, introduced amending legislation in the House to have the date postponed once again, the legislation had, as in the case of all legislation introduced in this House, been discussed beforehand by the various parties concerned. When members of our party discussed it amongst ourselves, I made an appeal to the hon. the Minister. I said that if it were necessary to delay the election again until November 1980, that should be the final delay and that on no account should there be a further extension.

That was my amendment, if you remember.

It so happens that subsequently, in the debate, an amendment was introduced …

Yes.

… by the then hon. member for Musgrave, I think.

I am not the hon. member for Musgrave. I am the hon. member for Umhlanga.

… and also the hon. member for Umhlanga.

That is better.

The facts of the situation are, however, that the delays or extensions that have been granted have, from time to time, been granted at the express request of the executive of the S.A. Indian Council.

So why did they not hold the election last November?

They now create the impression, however, that the delays have been brought about by a decision of this Government. In fact, I took part in discussions with representatives of the Indian community in my constituency a few months ago.

Both of them.

Not both of them.

Well, then all three of them.

At that particular meeting there were about 20 Indians.

Oh!

When I mentioned that the extension of the election date had been at the specific request of the executive of the S.A. Indian Council, some of the Indians present flatly denied it, and the reason why they denied it was because they had been brought under a wrong impression by the representatives on the S.A. Indian Council. I believe that the time is now ripe for the truth to come out.

It is for that reason that I am pleased that this Bill is now the final preparation for the election that is to take place on 4 November. Another part of this quotation from The Cape Times, reacting to the deputation that came to see the hon. the Prime Minister, reads—

That is when he said the election must go on; he did not accept their plea for a further delay—

The South African Indian Council has been pretty moderate in its general discussions, but if this is their attitude, that they now hope that the hon. the Prime Minister will henceforth have to deal with a radical front, then so be it. If the radical front are the real leaders of the Indian community, it is high time that this becomes known, because as with the Coloured community, we can only start making progress with the Indian community if we deal with the real leaders of the Indian community. I have no compunction whatsoever in saying that if the radicals are the real leaders of the Indian community, it must become known that they are in fact the real leaders. Let us then get into the negotiation process with the real leaders. We have nothing to hide; we have nothing to fear in dealing with radicals. In fact, in this very House we deal with radicals.

Do you mean Andries?

One of the members of the South African Indian Council also said—

This was one of the council members, Mr. Munsook. Then he said—

Can they eat it?

This is the question which must be posed and which they must answer: Can they eat the vote? In this election we are giving them the vote and asking them to elect their real leaders, their real representatives. Then we can see how we can deal with the matter. They, however, say that the untouchables in India, the millions of poverty stricken Indians, are better off than the Indian community in this country. But then, surely, this spokesman does not represent the interests of the Indian community. Then it is time that we find the real representatives of the Indian community.

With a basis for an election being prepared now, I appreciate it that we are now moving into the last phases and that we can go ahead and have an election so that the Indians can no longer say that they do not have the vote. Here they will now be able to elect their own representatives so that we can enter the process of discussion and dialogue with the real elected representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I am the member for Pinetown.

Temporarily!

Mr. Speaker, I noticed that no members of that party over there stood against me at the general election.

That will not happen again, brother, I promise you!

Mr. Speaker, I want to reply first of all to what was said by the hon. member for Klip River who raised two points during his speech. I do not wish to discuss the first one which dealt with the difficulties he is experiencing with the Indian Council in Natal.

I have no difficulties with the Indian Council.

I do not wish to go into the question of his difficulties. The second point he made was that the elections may bring forth the radical Indian elements in Natal. I really did not understand him on this point. It seemed to me—which is often the accusation made against us—as though he was inciting those radical elements to come forward in the Indian Council in Natal. It appeared to me as though he was making things very difficult for the hon. the Minister. I think I must leave that to him.

I wish to deal with just one of the principles of this amending Bill very briefly. It seems to me that this principle illustrates the mess in which we in South Africa find ourselves because of the ideological policies of this Government. This principle has already been mentioned by the hon. member for Umbilo and relates to clause 2 of this amending Bill. This principle deals with a situation in which an Indian who is a registered voter will not be domiciled in South Africa. The Bill provides for the registration of Indians as voters where they have previously not been domiciled, have not been resident and have never lived in their lives and where perhaps they never intend to live in the future, and this applies to a voter in South Africa from a foreign State. This voter in a foreign State will now have a vote in South Africa in an area where perhaps, as I say, he has never lived before. In fact, Sir, in terms of this Bill the electoral division of such a voter is determined by a criterion that has never before been used in South Africa. This criterion is the distance that a certain bird will fly from such Indian home in a foreign State to the nearest part of South Africa. That will be the deciding factor in regard to where such an Indian will vote in South Africa.

If he wishes to, he can apply for citizenship of another country.

Yes, of course. The amending Bill does provide for the fact that such an Indian must otherwise be eligible for registration as a voter in South Africa. How does it come about, Sir, that a man whose home is in a foreign State, in an independent State, has a vote in South Africa? Why does a man who lives in a foreign State have a vote in South Africa?

The same position obtains for the Whites.

That is exactly the point I am making. There is a racial mess-up in South Africa. In fact, it also works the other way—that there will be many people in South Africa living here who will have a vote in some other State. I am referring now to Black people.

But the Bill before us does not deal with that issue.

The Bill introduces this new issue, Sir.

No.

The Bill brings in this new element that an Indian will have a vote in a part of South Africa closest to where that Indian resides as the crow flies.

The Bill has nothing to do with whether he has the vote or not. The Bill only provides where he shall vote.

Yes, Sir, that is correct. It provides where he shall vote. The point I am making is that he will be given a vote in a place where perhaps he has never lived in his life before and in fact never intends to live. In fact, the hon. the Minister gave us the example of a person who previously lived in Mafikeng and who will now have a vote in Zeerust. Therefore, we will now arrive at a new principle in South African law in terms of which a foreigner will now have a vote in South Africa in a constituency where he never lived in his life before and may never intend to live in the future. Why is it to happen here now that a foreigner will have a vote in South Africa in a place where he has never lived before? I am referring now to a person living in an independent State.

I want to suggest that that trouble arises because the Government does not look at people in South Africa as people. It looks at Indians, for example, as Indian units who will vote for a council of Indian units, which as yet has no say in the power structure in South Africa. However, if the Indian Council in South Africa is in fact given some real power in the future then we will have the situation where people living outside South Africa and who in fact are foreigners, will have a say in the real power structure in South Africa. We will have the situation where a foreigner who has never in electoral division X …

But they are not foreigners; they are South African citizens.

I accept what the hon. member for Durban North says. They are at present South African citizens, but we are now establishing the principle that a person who in terms of international law would no longer be a South African citizen, who lives in a foreign State … [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. member whether he is aware of the fact that during the recent French election citizens of France living permanently in South Africa had the right to vote in that election?

Mr. Speaker, I have no problem …

Are you aware of that?

I am not aware of that particular fact, of French citizens living in South Africa having voted, but I am aware of the fact that French citizens living in Mauritius and on the Comoro Islands can vote in France. The point is that if a person no longer lives in South Africa, no longer has any intention of living in South Africa and is in fact no longer a citizen of South Africa …

Yes, but then he is no longer a citizen of South Africa.

Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to argue is that we are creating independent States in this country and we are creating citizens who are living in independent States …

Which clause are you dealing with?

I am dealing with clause 2, which seeks to amend section 10 of the Electoral Act for Indians. We are now creating a situation in South Africa which is not similar to that where one or two French citizens living in South Africa have the vote in France. We are now creating the situation where a number of people who live in independent States get the vote in South Africa. We also have the situation, in terms of other legislation, where African people who live in South Africa now have the vote in a foreign State. That is a very illogical and stupid step. The situation that arises is that those people who live in an independent State, who derives their income and their sustenance from that foreign independent State and who owe loyalty and allegiance to that State for what they derive from it, now get the vote not in that State, but in South Africa. We now create the situation where foreigners now have a share in the sovereign power of South Africa. The criticism levelled against my argument by, particularly, members of the New Republic Party is that those people are still citizens of South Africa. Technically they are still citizens of South Africa, but I am saying that it is a bad thing to create in South Africa an intrusion into the sovereign power of South Africa by people living outside the country, just as it is bad to create a situation where people who owe allegiance to South Africa because they derive their sustenance from South Africa and live in South Africa, have power in a foreign country. That is a very unsatisfactory situation. I do not want people who live in a foreign country to have a vote here in South Africa when all their loyalties are there and everything they derive from life is there. That is a situation I do not want.

They may just be there temporarily.

If people want to come and live in South Africa, they can have the vote in South Africa, but I do not want a crowd of foreigners to have the vote in South Africa.

They could be lawyers defending a trial there.

No, Sir, when people leave South Africa for a very short while that is a different situation. What is suggested in the Bill is that people who live and have their homes and are domiciled in a foreign State should continue to have a say in a part of the sovereignty of this State. This right is then determined by a criterion as arbitrary as how far a black bird flies.

I notice also that in terms of this Bill nomination courts will also be sitting outside the electoral divisions with which those nomination courts are concerned, but I accept the hon. the Minister’s explanation of why that need arises. We oppose the principle of racial representation, as has been said by my colleague the hon. member for Green Point, but what we oppose more than the principle of racial representation is no representation at all. Therefore, since in this Bill Indian people are being given some rights in South Africa, however limited, by virtue of elections, we do not oppose the Bill.

So you are supporting it?

That is correct. We are not opposing it. The hon. member for Green Point has made the point that in the circumstances we prefer an elected council to a nominated council.

Mr. Speaker, what I have just heard in this House I find rather inexplicable. The hon. members on that side of the House concede that this is a positive piece of legislation which the hon. the Minister has introduced here. They say they are not going to oppose it. Then, however, they add: “Yes, but …” hen they drag in all manner of things. I want to say, with due respect, that the hon. member for Pinetown has hold of the wrong end of the stick. He is attaching all sorts of connotations to flying crows, whereas only one matter is at issue, viz. citizenship. This is basically what is at issue. It seems to me the hon. member does not understand that aspect at all. If one examines the practical position in South Africa, one finds, for example, that of the people who live in Jan Kempdorp, some vote in the Transvaal and others in the Cape Province. I do not believe the hon. member understands any such thing. He tries to find fault with this Government and tries to attach a racial connotation to anything. Is he not aware that there are many citizens of Portugal living in South Africa and that they have a representative who lives in South Africa, a certain Dr. Pereira? He represents the Portuguese citizens in South Africa in the Portuguese Parliament. The hon. member does not understand this. He cannot conceive of such a possibility.

These hon. members say that this is positive legislation, but they are opposed to it because they are opposed in principle to a person being represented in a Parliament on a basis of race. The hon. member for Green Point alleged that the whole history of legislation with regard to the Indian Council in South Africa was a sorry history.

That is true.

I do not believe that these people are in actual fact interested in this legislation, not even fundamentally. I think they are essentially interested solely in putting forward their own policy in this House. They are not interested in anything else. They are not interested in those positive aspects which could arise out of this legislation. The hon. member for Pinetown alleged that the hon. member for Klip River spoke of “radical Indians”, and then asked whether we were not trying to “incite” them.

With all due respect, I do not believe that one can argue with the hon. member for Pinetown on that basis. I believe that he must accept that we are saddled with circumstances which are completely different to those which he is, to a great extent, trying to imply are prevalent. What he is trying to imply is that we are ostensibly living here in a kind of European State. I simply do not believe that it is possible to compare those two matters. I think the hon. member for Pinetown could really take a leaf from the speech of the hon. member for Umbilo and then himself try to make a positive contribution to these matters about which it is possible to make positive contributions in this House.

As far as I am concerned, there is no doubt—and I believe that there need be no doubt about this in this House or in this country—that the Government, under the leadership of the hon. the Prime Minister, is making a positive effort, and doing everything in its power, to accommodate the aspirations of every national group in this country in a positive way. If this is not done in terms of the PFP’s policy they are even prepared to criticize every piece of positive legislation as well. Despite the negative criticism we have to listen to, it is this very Government which has come forward with positive legislation, as is once again being demonstrated in the case under discussion. The PFP is once again simply trying to boycott it in an indirect manner, even in the way in which they are trying to do so now.

I am certain that the Government is open to constructive, critical views on every aspect of its policy. Furthermore, I believe that there has been open admission of mistakes which the Government may have made in the past. However, to criticize simply for the sake of criticizing is something in which I cannot see anything positive. I honestly believe that the radicals to whom the hon. member for Pinetown refers do exist. We must, I believe, recognize that there are indeed certain people in South Africa, and in the outside world as well, who have evil intentions as regards the people of this country, irrespective of their race or colour.

Surely this is true. After all, we know of such people. They act as boycotters and try to wreck everything. However, I think that we can accept that as far as the South African Indian is concerned, there are many people in the community at large—by far the vast majority of the Indian community—who will approach this legislation in a balanced way, and who will withstand the pressure of those radicals and will work on these positive instruments which the Government is creating.

The hon. member for Pinetown, and similarly the hon. member for Green Point, are acting in an absolutely opportunistic way. They really remind me of political vultures. Every single aspect they could possibly drag in, they seize on like a lot of vultures picking at a carcass to see what they can tear off it.

I want to suggest, with all due respect, that the PFP, with everything it has already consumed by way of the negative aspects, has now reached the stage at which they are so sated that they no longer know what is going on. Politically responsible people in South Africa will not allow them to carry on out of control on this basis. They will no longer be able to run away, even fly away, from these irresponsible things they are saying. I have no doubt that this is positive legislation, and I gladly support it.

Mr. Speaker, I find myself rising this evening to speak on the Second Reading of a Bill that I think we should all be more than pleased to see before us here. This is certainly something that we in these benches have been anxiously awaiting because it is connected with the day, 4 November, when the Indians will finally elect their own representatives, as is their right, to the S.A. Indian Council. This is a Bill that has been introduced by the hon. the Minister, that has been supported by the official Opposition and that has been supported by our party, but in the strangest of terms. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not a fact that originally the S.A. Indian Council was brought into being by the Government sitting opposite. It was an instrument that was brought into being by the Nationalist Government and it is something that has served the Indian community reasonably well, as the hon. member for Umbilo demonstrated in his speech, but it has not been sufficient for the needs of that community.

Having said that, I ask myself: Why is it that the hon. member for Klip River in supporting the hon. the Minister in his introduction of this measure reminded me a little of the well-known lady who protesteth too much, because his speech did not sound like a speech of support to me. To me his speech seemed to be a speech of excuses. He was making all sorts of excuses for the Government. He was saying that it was not their fault that the Indian Council was not a freely elected body long ago. He said that we had to blame the Indians for that and not blame them. He was wanting to absolve the Government of all blame in that connection. The hon. member for Roodepoort who has just resumed his seat said in his speech that it had been suggested by the hon. member for Pinetown that the hon. member for Klip River may have said something that would incite the Indian people. I do not think he said anything to incite the Indian people but I think he said a lot to insult the Indian people and to insult the members of the S.A. Indian Council which is a body that was brought into being by the hon. the Minister and his predecessors sitting opposite. I believe the hon. member for Klip River has done the Indian community an injustice here tonight.

You are talking nonsense.

I am not talking nonsense. The hon. member must read his Hansard because he spoke in the most derogatory terms of the members of the S.A. Indian Council. That is a council that was set up by the very government he serves. These are the people who have been trying to do a job under extremely difficult conditions and they now find themselves making way for a fully elected council, which we all support, but they must leave under this cloud. I think this is a disgraceful way to treat these people. I do not think that is necessary. After all is said and done, we do for obvious reasons want to see a fully elected Indian Council. We want to see this because we want to establish who the real leaders are. Until this time the Government has been responsible for the appointment of those leaders. Why in heaven’s name in the dying moments of this council does a member of this House and a member of that governing party have to stand up and insult them? I think it is a disgrace. The hon. member also mentioned having spoken to these people in Ladysmith and, when I challenged him, he eventually admitted that there were about 20 Indians to whom he spoke. I want to tell that hon. member that the members of this party have spoken to hundreds of Indians and we shall do what we can to encourage all Indians to take part in these elections. However, I do believe it is our duty, on both sides of this House, to recognize that the fault has been not just with the Government, not just with the Indian Council and not just with the Opposition for that matter. But mistakes have been made and let us in heaven’s name, in the establishment of the S.A. Indian Council, the new body, let us at least be positive. Let us at least go into this in the right spirit. Let us go into this thing appreciating that we owe the Indian community a measure of respect. We owe ourselves a measure of self-respect. So let us go into this thing with a will to do the best for all parties, both this Parliament and the Indian Council to be elected. This can only serve the interests of this Parliament in the long run. It is a good example but we set a bad example when we carry on as this hon. member has tonight. I agree with one thing that he said. He said, now is the time that we will have real representatives of the Indian people. Yes, Sir, now is the time, and I am grateful to that hon. the Minister because I believe that he has done more than his predecessors have in this connection. My understanding of the matter is that he has done more. I despaired last year. I thought that perhaps he was going to do the same as happened in the past in respect of the Indian Council elections.

You know what I did.

He gave an undertaking and he has fulfilled that undertaking.

Finally, I want to say in all kindness to the hon. member for Pinetown: My friend, I wish you well reading your Hansard tomorrow because, heaven alone knows, I do not think you will ever be able to understand it!

Mr. Speaker, I want to take part in this debate because of certain remarks made by the hon. member for Roodepoort, but before I do so I should like to congratulate the hon. member for Umhlanga on a fighting speech. I think his attack on the hon. member for Klip River was in the best traditions of our parliamentary Opposition and I only hope that we will hear more on similar lines from the hon. member for Umhlanga …

When it is justified I shall do so but I am not going to be dictated to by you. [Interjections.]

I must confess that perhaps I should withdraw my congratulations after that! However, I must rather get on to the real subject of the evening, not the side issues, and that is the speech made by the hon. member for Roodepoort.

The hon. member for Roodepoort got up and attacked my colleague, the hon. member for Pinetown, for bringing a racial connotation into this Bill. Can one have anything more ridiculous than to suggest that a racial connotation has been brought into a Bill the title of which is “Electoral Act for Indians Second Amendment Bill”? The racial connotation is in the very title of this Bill. This is a Bill specifically designed for the usage of one section of our population and one section only. That section is defined by the colour of their skin, by their original culture and heritage and the country from which they came, not by any other characteristic such as their intelligence, possessions, or education. Then the hon. member has the nerve to accuse my colleague of being racialistic when the whole Bill introduced by that Government is based on racialism.

Are you for or against it?

The hon. members of the NRP know perfectly well that we have said that we are supporting this Bill.

It does not sound like it.

I am simply pointing out to the hon. member for Roodepoort, who does not seem to understand it, that this Bill has racial connotations. We have said that we welcome the improvements brought about and that we are not opposing this Bill. Obviously, we wish that the whole political situation could develop a great deal further than the stage to which it has developed.

The next thing I want to say to the hon. member for Roodepoort relates to clause 2, once again in view of the fact that he says we are being racialistic. What is the actual situation? The actual situation is that certain countries have been given their independence and all citizens of those countries, whether they live in those specific independent countries or in the rest of South Africa, are forced, if they are Black, to take citizenship in their specific independent country. We then dealt with the White people and said that White people who lived in an independent country could continue to have a vote in South Africa. Now we come to the next item on the agenda which is that Indian people who are now living in the independent countries will still be entitled to vote within South Africa …

But that is not the intent of this Bill, with due respect.

With respect, it is. In terms of clause 2 it puts into effect the situation whereby people who live outside the borders of the Republic of South Africa, for instance in Transkei …

No, you are missing the point …

Well, then, I shall be very interested to hear the hon. the Minister’s reply. However, the point that I am trying to make for the hon. member of Roodepoort’s benefit is that these provisions are based totally on racial connotations, and if by any chance the President’s Council recommends that we should have a fully elected Coloured Representative Council or body of some kind, and they produce similar legislation, I have no doubt that once again that racial connotation will be introduced. The hon. member for Roodepoort did not, however, stop at calling it racialistic. He also insinuated that we in the PFP do not have good intentions. Once again he called us boycotters and said that politically responsible people would not vote for this party. However, I simply want to refer him to the situation that prevailed before and after the recent general election. Obviously many more people voted for this party than ever before and will, I maintain, continue to do so, despite the constant attacks and innuendos which were initiated by the hon. the Prime Minister and which have been continued in the discussion of virtually every single Bill, the innuendo that we in this party are leading South Africa, or are attempting to lead South Africa, along a dangerous path. I do think that we in these benches—in fact South Africa as a whole—have had enough of such insinuations.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to commence this debate by expressing my very sincere gratitude to hon. members for the support they have given this legislation. [Interjections.] However, any superficial observer would gain the impression that the legislation is being opposed by all parties!

Including the hon. member for Klip River.

I gave one of my younger colleagues, who is a scientist, very sound advice on his maiden speech in this House. It is sound advice for the future as well. I told him not to discuss his field of study in this Parliament. It is best to discuss the other person’s field of study. It seems to me that it was sound advice.

I appreciate the fact that I am being permitted to take the Bill through all its stages, for I must get the legislation passed.

I want to start by replying to the hon. member for Green Point. He raised one point which I believe must be answered. He put the following question: Arising from the postponement of the registration date and the resultant closing of the voters’ roll at a later stage, is it not possible that some of the political parties may gain an advantage as a result of the prior knowledge that this was going to happen? Naturally something of this nature is theoretically possible, but I also want to point out that as far back as June I issued a statement in which I announced that there would be more time for registration than is provided for by the existing legislation. The announcement was specifically intended to avoid giving an unfair advantage to members of political parties with whom I had held discussions. I trust the hon. member will accept this explanation.

However, I want to elaborate somewhat on my explanation. When I extended the life of the council last session, I explained that the election had been postponed in terms of the 1978 legislation which provided for a general election by registered voters. In that specific regard, therefore, the hon. member for Klip River is correct. I am saying this for no other reason than simply to record the facts. In fact, when I received the first request for the postponement of the election which had to take place, I not only asked the executive committee of the Indian Council to find out the opinion of the whole council, but I also discussed it with every political party which was at that stage recognized by the community, and in dealing with the legislation here last time, I gave the assurance that I would not postpone the election any further. In this specific connection I want to confirm that I once again received a request from the Indian Council, and not only from the executive committee, to postpone the election. Moreover, it is factually correct that a deputation of the council held discussions with the hon. the Prime Minister and requested a further postponement. I share the standpoint of all the hon. members that as long as the Indian Council exists, it is essential that the Indian people determine for themselves who their leaders are by way of a general election by registered voters. This is what is going to happen in terms of the legislation which is before us.

I do not want to get involved in a discussion about political philosophies, for then we shall stay here all night. I just want to say that the provision to which the hon. member for Green Point referred really exists. It means the postponement of the closing date of the voters’ roll. The fact is that up to 21 August this year, 291 847 Indian voters had registered, which represents 76,5% of the total number of registrable voters. In other words, I think the postponement of this closing date has in the first place meant that the voters who were not registered have been given the opportunity to register, which would otherwise not have happened. As from 21 September this year, my department will hold seminars in Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria, where there are concentrations of Indians. The seminars will be held to inform and guide the representatives of political parties and candidates, and the relevant sections of the Electoral Act and the procedures in respect of the nomination of candidates, the casting of special votes by voters who cannot reach a polling booth on election day, the voting procedure at polling booths and the counting of the votes will be explained. We must understand—and I am not saying this in a derogatory way—that this population group has not yet been exposed to this sort of procedure and this kind of election, and I want to emphasize in this regard that we must do everything in our power to make a success of the election.

†In this particular regard I want to laud the comments made by the hon. member for Umbilo. I agree with him that, notwithstanding the fact that the original Indian Council was a nominated body and notwithstanding the fact that afterwards it was partly nominated and partly indirectly elected, it did make a major contribution towards the welfare of the Indian communities of this country. I should like to pay tribute to the people who were prepared to serve on this council. I know for a fact that they were abused by many people in the country. They were abused by their own people and they were abused also by Whites. They were called stooges of the Government because they had accepted appointments to serve their people. Therefore I think that when we come to the end of the term of office of the council, we owe the members of the council a debt of gratitude for the example they have set in serving their community. Many things were achieved by the council for the benefit and advantage of the community which served. Therefore I share the sentiments of the hon. member for Umbilo.

*I wish to thank the hon. member for Rissik for his support and contribution, and I also wish to thank the hon. members for Klip River and Roodepoort.

†I now come to the hon. member for Pinetown and I intend dealing very kindly with the hon. member tonight, but I should like to warn him immediately that this will not always be so, because when my Vote is discussed, I shall address myself to the hon. member in different terms and with a different attitude from that in which I address him tonight.

*I do not want to disturb the peace prevailing this evening. I want to pilot through the legislation. However, I have a problem with the hon. member for Pine-town.

†He said that with this Bill we are introducing a new principle in international law. I do not understand this statement at all, Sir, because the voting rights in any country of any voter in that country are not determined by international law. In fact, international law does not deal with that subject at all. It deals with issues such as its name indicates—issues of international relationships between States.

*This is what happens, while the electoral laws of a country are regulated by the constitutional law of that country. This is not done by international law. Consequently the hon. member for Pinetown is, in the first place, making a fundamental mistake on a point of law.

The hon. member went further. In the second place he said that this legislation which was introducing a new concept into international law was now giving franchise—he must listen carefully now—to foreigners in South Africa.

†Let us analyse this statement. By coming to this conclusion the hon. member has acknowledged as a matter of principle the independence of the national States that have already become independent. He called these people foreigners. The hon. member argues that these people are in fact foreigners because they live in a foreign State. There is only one implication from that argument and that is the fact that the hon. member accepts not as a matter of law but as a matter of fact the concept of independent States.

That is what you say.

Furthermore, the hon. member says that we must disenfranchise the people living in a foreign country because of the fact that they live there.

Just like the Xhosas.

Just one moment. This is important. I shall be obliged if the hon. member will not talk about something about which he knows nothing because exactly the same position now applies as far as the Xhosas are concerned. That is that whether or not they live in this State they have the vote in their State. The position is exactly the same except in reverse. However, I do not wish to start an argument on an interjection. The point that the hon. member makes is that if one does not live in one’s country one should not have the vote. In other words, before a man applies for citizenship of another country he must forfeit his voting rights in his country of origin.

May I ask you a question?

No, please.

So if you live in Holland, you will not have a vote in South Africa?

That is the point.

That is determined by the laws. [Interjections.]

*Sir, the hon. member for Bezuidenhout argues just like a sieve. The fact is that different countries have different electoral systems.

South Africa, too, has an electoral system for Whites.

Exactly, but it has an electoral system for Black people and for Indians as well. [Interjections.] France, too, has such a system. [Interjections.] Oh please, colleague, give me a chance! Portugal has a representative Cabinet. I am speaking about the argument as to whether there is a precedent for the specific procedure.

Not in South Africa. Not for Whites.

Whites who live in Transkei may vote in South Africa.

But Whites living in Holland may not!

Sir, a White …

We caught you out. You are discriminating against the Whites! [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Pinetown and the hon. member for Port Elizabeth Central are arguing about a point for which this legislation does not make provision. This legislation does not regulate the franchise of people who live in independent States in this country. This has already been regulated by the 1978 Law. All that this legislation provides for is the constituency in which the voters who are entitled to vote under the existing legislation will cast their votes. Surely this is not so difficult for a lawyer to understand, or at least for most lawyers, and the hon. member will forgive me for this remark. Before this debate goes any further and hon. members begin to support me in another way, which does not really amount to support at all, I shall conclude.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Bill not committed.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

I would advise hon. members not to be so voluble in their support of this legislation as they were in the case of the Bill we have just dealt with.

†The members of the Executive Committee of the South African Indian Council held discussions with me on 26 June 1981 at Durban in connection with certain procedural matters and matters of principle with regard to the composition of the South African Indian Council and its Executive Committee in the light of the forthcoming general election on 4 November 1981 of the members of the council.

The present council and its Executive Committee must in terms of the existing legislation dissolve before the date on which the general election of the members of the Council is announced by the State President by proclamation in the Government Gazette, i.e. 4 September 1981.

As a result of my discussions with the Executive Committee and in order to provide for this transitional period in future, it is proposed in clause 1 that the Minister shall have the power to summon the council for the dispatch of business and that the council and its Executive Committee shall continue their functions until the day immediately preceding the polling day for the election in pursuance of the dissolution. Provision is also made in clause 3 that the term of office of the present council and its Executive Committee will extend to the day immediately preceding the polling day for the first general election of the members of the Council.

The number of members of the Executive Committee of the South African Indian Council to be appointed after the general election will be reduced from five to four members when the South African Indian Council Amendment Act, 1978, comes into operation prior to the announcement in the Government Gazette on 4 September 1981 of the general election. The aforementioned Amendment Act contains other provisions such as the increase in the number of the members of the South African Indian Council and it is therefore obligatory that this Amendment Act must come into operation before the forthcoming general election is announced in the Government Gazette.

As a result of the extent of the activities of the Executive Committee it is considered desirable that the status quo regarding the number of members of the Executive Committee be retained. Provision is therefore made in clause 2 that the Executive Committee that will be appointed after the general election will still consist of a chairman and four other members of the council.

Mr. Speaker, the least the hon. the Minister can do to convey his gratitude for our support of the legislation is to give us time to express that support in the way we should like to.

We are prepared to give our support to this Bill as well. This Bill also concerns the continued existence of the Indian Council, its dissolution and its functions, especially after its dissolution. I must say that initially, we on this side of the House naturally felt concerned about the Bill, because of the background and history of the Indian Council and because the life of that council had been extended on so many occasions for reasons which we did not always find at all acceptable. We naturally feared that this Bill might bring about a situation where this protracted process could be drawn out even further and where the life of the Indian Council, already artificially prolonged, could be extended even further. However, we have been satisfied that this Bill does not present that danger, especially after consultations with officials from the hon. the Minister’s department. I should like to convey my thanks to those officials for their personal advice and assistance and the discussion we had about this.

I want to indicate briefly what our problem in this connection was so that the hon. the Minister may also understand it. In respect of one aspect of the matter I should like to receive an assurance from the hon. the Minister. As I have said, our chief problem was that we feared that this measure could lead to a further extension of the period of office of the Indian Council. Then it was quite correctly pointed out to us that the date on which the extended term of the Indian Council would end, i.e. the term within which the Indian Council can be reconvened and within which the members may continue to serve after the dissolution of the council, was actually linked to the election. So the final date is actually the day before the election. When one reads it like that, there is of course no possibility that this Bill could contain any new provision which could cause the life of the Indian Council to be artificially prolonged again.

In this connection I wish to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to something which bothered me because it was not quite clear. It is a mere technicality. In lines 7 and 8 on page 2 one finds the words “whether by effluxion of time or otherwise”. The provision reads as follows—

A little further on in the clause, however, one finds the words—

In my opinion, it could in fact be said in the very first line that the dissolution is a result of the election. Whether the election was called as a result of an effluxion of time or whether it was an early election does not matter. The point is that it is the result of an election which has been called. Once again, however, we were given the assurance that the election date had been introduced into the clause in order to qualify the first three lines of the proposed section 5B and that for this very reason, there was no problem in this connection. I should like the hon. the Minister to confirm this across the floor of the House.

We have no problem with clause 2. Clause 3, of course, relates to the position of the existing members of the Indian Council. It is naturally acceptable that these members will retain the rights and privileges pertaining to their position until such time as the election actually takes place.

†I now wish to deal with clause 3. This clause brings to mind the fact that these members have enjoyed an election-free existence in their council, a situation which simply could not have been to the advantage of the Indian people or in keeping with democratic standards. I just want to deal very briefly with that matter as well, particularly in reaction to issues raised by other hon. members during the discussion of the previous Bill when the same issue was under discussion. It was very interesting to listen to the hon. member for Klipriver. I found it interesting and other hon. members have already indicated that he was actually presenting us with excuses why these extensions have been taking place. It was mainly due to the attitude of the Indian people. I think it is fair to say that that is what he alleged. In dealing with the Bill, the hon. member became so enthusiastic about the positive nature of the Bill that is merely a technical one that I had second thoughts about supporting it in the final instance. The hon. member for Klipriver inferred that the hon. the Prime Minister indicated to a delegation from the Indian Council who visited him in the past few days, that he was absolutely adamant that the election should go ahead. This is understandable, and I think is a laudable attitude. However, I think it would be unfair to blame the extension of the life of the Indian Council, which I believe is an undemocratic practice, entirely on the Indian people. In this regard I should like to quote from Hansard what has been said by that old guru of South African politics, Mr. Marais Steyn, a man who now squats at the Court of St. James. In column 585 of Hansard 1980 he said, when dealing with the Period of Office of Members of the South African Indian Council Extension Bill—

There he was dealing with the Schlebusch Commission which had just been appointed and which consisted of members of this House. It had to investigate the possibility of a new constitution—

Then he said with great conviction, as was his wont—

He continued by saying that he had also had requests from members of the Indian Council in this regard. I merely say for the consideration of hon. members that this same set of circumstances in fact applies today. Therefore I think it would be unrealistic not to accept at this stage already that it will have an influence on the election. I have already mentioned during the discussions on the previous Bill that it is highly likely that members who wish to submit their names for election to this council may face the difficulty of not knowing how long their term is going to be. There is the President’s Council, which, in a situation which is similar to the Schlebusch Commission at that time, may come forward with new constitutional proposals at any time, proposals which would have to be put into operation as quickly as possible and in terms of which those people may find that their terms of office is going to end abruptly. They may ther find themselves prejudiced in their personal capacity. I do believe that this is a matter that has to be considered. There is absolutely nothing that can be done about that situation today, but, believe me, if this election is not a success, and if this particular consideration contributes to that lack of success, then hon. members on the other side will only have themselves to blame.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill.

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

There is just one other matter I want to mention. Other hon. members were very enthusiastic about the Bill before us and about the election itself. I should just like to say that we too are prepared to support the Bill, but allow me to assure hon. members on the other side that whatever the percentage poll is going to be, and I have no reason to believe that it will be a particularly high poll, we have to keep in mind that there is still a situation of Hobson’s choice to the Indian people and that whatever comes as a result of this election, it should be seen as no more than a step on some kind of political ladder and that it is very far from proper political representation for them in this country.

Mr. Speaker, it seems that hon. members are somewhat eager to have the peace disrupted in the House at this time of night. However, I think that the speech by the hon. member for Green Point was delivered in a spirit of calm and tranquility. I therefore also want to …

Are you going to become the first commissioner general for the Indians? [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, I must say that it has been very pleasant for me to work with the Indians over the years. I want to make bold to say that I may possibly know the Indians a bit better than the hon. member for Bryanston knows them. However, I think that the Rissik constituency, which rejected the hon. member for Bryanston 15 years ago, is completely satisfied with me. My majority simply increases each time. [Interjections.]

Daan, you are going to become the leader of the HNP yet.

In any event, I do not want to be side-tracked, not by the hon. member for Bryanston. I can quite understand that the hon. member for Green Point wants to keep on returning to the principle underlying this particular legislation. Of course, it is true that hon. members on this side of the House approach legislation of this nature from a completely different angle. We have discussed it with the hon. the Minister and our group is quite satisfied that the hon. the Minister is quite entitled to introduce this legislation in this way. In addition, we believe that it will bring about the smooth functioning of the Indian Council.

I am also grateful for the fact that the hon. member for Green Point was able to give the assurance that the problems which he had with this legislation—with regard to the date on which the term would end—have now been eliminated and that he is satisfied with it.

Last but not least I just want to point out that we on this side of the House realize that the institution of the Indian Council and the successful functioning thereof depends upon the framework within which the NP places it. The pleasant atmosphere that we have experienced from the very outset, since the Indian Council was established, is still present, and therefore I also want to express the confidence that the Indian population will make the best use of this council and that they will show their co-operation. In spite of the problems that may exist with regard to the Indian Council, I nevertheless hope that they will in fact use the Indian Council as a basis for rendering service to their own people, rendering service to South Africa too.

Mr. Speaker, the NRP has every intention of supporting the principles of this Bill now before the House. I should like to make comment, however, in respect of one of the clauses, namely clause 2, which seeks to amend section 10 of the principal Act. As far as the provisions of clause 2(b) are concerned, whilst I appreciate the intention of improving the measure, it is nevertheless improving a somewhat Draconian part of the principal Act. Previously either an elected or a nominated member could be removed from office. The intention now is to delete “or elected” and to retain only “appointed”.

In view of the present constitution of the Indian Council and the executive I wonder whether that clause is really necessary at all today. The constitution has been changed in order to have a fully elected council. Even the nominated members are nominated in a manner similar to the way in which people are nominated to become members of Parliament. In other words, if there are more than 34 members belonging to the majority party they will have three nominated members, and if there are fewer than 34, they will have two, while the opposition will have one such nominated member. Additional members will also be nominated by the leader of the majority party. In other words, the elected members have the say. I know the State President formally instals the nominated members but they are in most cases nominated at the behest of the majority chairman or, under certain circumstances, of the minority chairman. Whilst I do not propose to hold up the Bill tonight on this issue, I believe it is something that should be looked at because I suspect that with the new constitution this may well not be necessary.

The other point that I wish to raise is not directly related to the Bill, although it is part of the Act itself. This deals with the functions of the executive of the Indian Council. This Bill, to a very large extent, brings the Indian Council into line with provincial activities and with the authorities and responsibilities of provincial bodies. One finds that the members of the council have positive functions as, in fact, is the case with provincial councils. Among other things they will be responsible for education and community welfare and for such other matters as the State President may from time to time decide by proclamation in the Government Gazette.

Order! The hon. member must come back to the Bill. I do not think it covers the matters he is discussing now.

I believe it does, Mr. Speaker. The functions of the executive are directly related to the possibility of their being removed from office, and this is why I make the point. They can be removed from office as a result of their activities and their authorities and, therefore, I think it is important to clarify the position of their authorities. As it stands, for the most part at the present moment, they have considerable influence in advising in respect of all these functions, many of which I mentioned when discussing the previous Bill. I would therefore suggest that serious consideration be given to giving them positive authority in certain of these fields, something which they do not have at the present moment. I mention specifically and in particular something that at present is a heartsore and burning matter among the Indian community in the Durban area, and that is in relation to these school children who were stupid enough to boycott their classes and who have not been able to go back to school. I feel that in a situation like that the ultimate authority should be the Indian Council and not the Director of Education of their department. This is the sort of thing I have in mind when I say that in regard to the various authorities that they have, they should be given positive, executive authority. In other words, they should be an executive in fact and not merely an executive in name.

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion this Bill is a logical arrangement which will ensure that there will be continuity with regard to the dissolution of the Indian Council and the continuation of duties and services until the date on which the election will be held. This is a traditional way of doing things and I therefore feel that it is a fair arrangement.

The provision contained in clause 2, viz. that the Executive Committee shall consist of five members, is also logical. At the moment the Executive Committee consists of five members and according to the division of activities, tasks have been delimitated. According to this provision, those tasks will now be able to be continued. This is a practical arrangement in all respects, and I support it.

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of the hon. the Minister’s introductory remarks to this Second Reading debate, I am going to be very brief. I do, however, think that it is appropriate for me to say something on either of the two Bills that we have been discussing tonight, in view of the fact that over the past three years I have been the main spokesman for my party on the affairs of the Indian Council. [Interjections.] We are here dealing with the extension of the life of the Indian Council to the day preceding the election. It is a formality, and therefore obviously we on this side of the House, as the hon. member for Green Point has indicated, are going to support the Bill. We do, of course, believe that it is high time that an election were held for the Indian Council. The hon. the Minister knows our point of view very well indeed. He knows that this is not a form of representation that we support. We would far rather see direct representation for the Indian community, but this matter nevertheless does have a history, and we are now getting to the stage at which, after all these years of vacillation, confusion and contradictory statements by the hon. the Minister’s predecessors, we are actually about to have an election. The hon. the Minister said earlier, across the floor of the House, that he had kept his promise. There was a debate here last year in which 4 November was fixed as the date for the election. I must tell the hon. the Minister briefly, however, that when I saw representations being made to him a few months ago I watched the proceedings very carefully indeed to see what his reaction would be to those representations. I think it is to the hon. the Minister’s credit, in view of the past history of this matter, that he has not procrastinated any longer and that there has to be an election, whatever the situation may be because, as I have said, there have been promises, time and time again, about the election of this Council. I therefore do believe that there is going to be an election in November. Equally I believe that this measure will, in future, be helpful to the Indian Council. In spite of our reservations about the Indian Council as a form of representation, I nevertheless believe that this is a good measure.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the hon. members for their support for this legislation. At the very outset I wish to refer to the hon. member for Green Point who drew attention to clause 1 of the Bill which makes provision for the extension of the life of the existing council to a date preceding the election. The hon. member wants me to give him the assurance that it will not be possible in terms of this clause to postpone the election any further. I wish to explain briefly that the dissolution of the council may take place in one of two ways. Dissolution may be as a result of the effluxion of time, or as a result of a decision by the executive. The extension of the life of the council to a date immediately preceding an election, merely brings the situation into line with the position pertaining to Parliament itself, because we remain members of Parliament up to the day prior to an election.

†The fact that the extension of the life of the council is linked to a date immediately preceding an election date implies directly that I cannot extend the life of the council, the members of the council or the executive members of the council to any other date. I therefore want to give the hon. member the assurance that there is no possibility whatsoever, in terms of clause 1, of extending the life of the council, or the term of office of members of the council, other than to a date immediately preceding an election, which means that there must have been a proclamation fixing the date of such an election.

*I hope he will accept this. The hon. member also referred to what my predecessor said as motivation for the extension of the life of the council, which was constituted in terms of the 1968 Act. I do not wish to discuss these reasons, except to say that the postponing of the election also took place at the request of the members of the council. When I say this, I am not being critical, but am merely sketching the actual course of events. The fact remains that the then Constitutional Committee could perhaps have made changes which would also have had an effect on the Indian Council. However, the hon. member will recall that it was the unanimous decision of all the hon. members of this House who served on that committee and also in the commission that the drawing up of a constitution was a slow process. The hon. member will receive confirmation of this from his own leader. Precisely because this was the standpoint and because this way the conclusion which was drawn from the evidence, it was recommended that the activities of the commission, which was an extension of the Select Committee, should be terminated so that other bodies which could meet for a longer period and on a reasonably permanent basis could give attention to constitutional proposals. The argument used by my predecessor was offered in the light of the circumstances prevailing at that specific time; it was not an invalid argument. The hon. member will also remember that I myself, when I spoke about the extension of the life of the council, also used that argument.

†I should like to say something with regard to the point made by the hon. member for Klip River, and that is that if we do not accept this amendment, it would in fact mean that there will be no council and no executive. That would then mean that all decisions to be taken with regard to the Indian people would have to be taken by myself and my department. Though hon. members may argue as to the effectiveness of the council and as to whether this system or policy is the right one or not, we must all concede that the council has fulfilled, and still fulfils, a role, and that is to interpret the needs and the wishes of the Indian people, as they see it. With that instrument at my disposal, the chances that I shall take wrong decisions in connection with these people, are fewer. That alone is sufficient justification for extending the life of the council.

*I think the Coloureds made a mistake when they asked for the abolition of the Coloured Persons Representative Council. It is also said that the Government made a mistake by allowing this. However, if one cannot admit one’s mistakes, one can never put them right. Today I wish to point out two things, namely that political parties from among the ranks of the Coloured people are now approaching me to hold discussions on matters affecting the lives of those people, and because they have no other instrument and because I need to have discussions with people from that community, I am taking this matter further with them. Once again a vacuum has been created which I must try and fill in some or other way and I make no excuse for speaking to the leaders of the people about whose lives I must make decisions. The fact that I do not agree with their political standpoints does not detract from the fact that they are qualified to give their interpretation of the needs and the demands of their own people. For this reason it is my party’s standpoint that this council, even in its elected form, does not represent a terminal point in the political aspirations of the Indian people. If this were so then we would surely not have subjected the constitutional dispensation of the future to the critical investigation in the first place of a Select Committee of this House, and then a commission of the State President and finally the President’s Council. What is true—and there should be great appreciation for this by this House and the general public—is that although the history of the Indian Council to which the hon. member for Umbilo referred is not satisfactory in many people’s eyes, it does represent an evolutionary process in respect of the constitutional development of the Indian, and this is important. I am one of the people who believes unconditionally that in a dynamic community there must be continuous adjustments to the constitutional evolution of our country. After all those adjustments have taken place and are still taking place in respect of this Parliament itself. On the road ahead existing institutions will have to be changed in terms of their composition and in terms of their powers. However, the point is that we have opted for a course involving constitutional reform in a specific way, and this is important. This legislation is linked to a specific view on the process of change and political reform. Therefore I want to say this this evening: I have appreciation for all the parties in the country which are prepared, even if they have reservations, to co-operate in this process. I wish to repeat my thanks in this connection.

I have already referred to what the hon. member for Klip River had to say.

†I want to deal now with the hon. member for Umbilo. I should like the hon. member to refer to clause 2(b) which amends section 10 of the principal Act. The principle of secrecy is not being established or introduced in terms of this clause. The only amendment this clause seeks to effect to section 10 of the principal Act is the omission of the words “or elected”. If the hon. member will refer to the 1968 Act he will find that in terms of that Act the members of the Executive Committee of the Indian Council were in fact appointed by the Minister. In terms of the 1978 Act which has not as yet been promulgated the executive is not appointed by the Minister but is in fact appointed by the State President on the recommendation of the leader of the majority party or group in the council. This in effect means that the convention which obtains in parliamentary systems that the leader of the majority party is requested by the State President to form a Government is being given statutory authority in terms of this provision. What I am trying to say, therefore, is that the concept of secrecy is not being introduced now. However, while we are discussing this point and for the edification of the hon. member I want to say that I am sure he will understand that we are dealing here with the executive, and members of executives in general—I am referring here to Governments—are bound by an oath of secrecy. As a Minister I am not allowed to divulge secrets of the Cabinet. The same obtains here.

There is no sanction here.

Of course there is no sanction here.

It is the same with the Executive Committee of a province.

There is no oath of secrecy in this case, except as introduced by this clause.

*I do not want to have a long argument about this. However, there is a need for secrecy. Hon. members must bear in mind that in terms of our own Constitution Act the State President may dismiss Ministers from office for any reason.

Yes, he wanted to fire me once.

And hon. members do not know how I had to plead on behalf of the hon. the Minister of Transport Affairs! This only goes to show, Sir, that I can also make mistakes!

†I would finally like to thank the hon. member for Berea for his comments and remarks. I would like to say that to a large extent it will be, our attitudes and utterances that will determine, to some extent, who will be elected to this council. I would like to conclude by saying one more thing. I am worried about the extent to which discussions between us in this House will bedevil the relationships between the various groups in this country.

I should like to thank the hon. members for their support.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Second Time.

Bill not committed.

Third Reading

Mr. Speaker, I move, subject to Standing Order No. 56—

Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask for the hon. the Minister’s attention in respect of an aspect that flows from clauses 1 and 3 of this Bill. In time he will have to give attention to the possible passage of time between the dissolution of this council and the following election. I want to draw the hon. the Minister’s attention to section 3 of the Act, which provides that if the Indian Council is dissolved as a result of effluxion of time, at a period when an election for the House of Assembly is taking place, the State President has the right to postpone that election for 12 months. In actual fact this means that the Indian Council can continue to function for a period of 15 months after its time has expired. It does not seem logical to me that that postponement should take place merely because an election of members of the House of Assembly is in progress. All that I am asking, is that in due course, the hon. the Minister should also give attention to the desirability of eliminating this.

Mr. Speaker, let me set the hon. member Prof. Olivier’s mind at rest at once. My standpoint is that the elections for the councils of the various population groups must take place simultaneously. I believe there is no longer a valid reason today for the election of a representative Indian Council to be postponed simply because a parliamentary election is being held. In the nature of things it is an instrument, and that is why it is my standpoint that it may be much more worthwhile if the elections take place simultaneously so that the public eye will not be concentrated on one only. I am in complete agreement with the hon. member, and I shall therefore give attention to this.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Speaker, I move—

Mr. Speaker, if words have any meaning, the Bill as it stands has more good points in it than bad points. It is true that ministerial power is extended in the Bill, and that is not a good thing as far as we are concerned, but there are other aspects of the Bill which make the Bill worthy of our support. We shall therefore support the Third Reading.

My main problem with the Bill, to which I must come back and which I discussed with the hon. the Minister across the floor of the House during the Second Reading debate and also in the Committee Stage, does not so much concern the wording of the Bill but the background to it and particularly the hon. the Minister’s comments in regard to aspects of it. The hon. the Minister has shown all too clearly that even now, before the Bill becomes law, the Government does not mean what the words of the Bill say. From the hon. the Minister’s comments in the earlier stages of this Bill it is apparent that the Government does not mean what the words of the Bill say, nor does the Nursing Association mean what it says, when the Minister and the association claim that there is no racial consideration in the regulation of the activities of the S.A. Nursing Association. That was a case made by the hon. the Minister when he introduced the Bill at Second Reading when he said that the Nursing Association was not influenced by racial considerations, and that was the case made by the association itself in public statements it made. That does not square with the attitude of the association towards aspects of its activities and it does not square with the attitude of the Minister during the debate on this measure. In fact, the hon. the Minister has shown during the earlier stages of the Bill that the Government’s intentions in regard to the association are clearly to regulate and to manipulate its racial composition. It is in fact an exercise in duplicity in this regard. The Government has decided unilaterally to declare the so-called self-governing States independent in so far as the activities of the Nursing Association are concerned and it intends to insist willy nilly that nurses in the so-called self-governing States form their own associations. In the previous stages of the Bill the hon. the Minister has steadfastly refused, for example, to entertain the notion that nurses in kwaZulu, which is part and parcel of the Republic of South Africa and which is not an independent State …

It is the same old story again. You are repeating yourself.

… nurses in kwaZulu who have said that they do not want to be part of a separate association and whose regional authority has asked that those nurses be included in the activities of the S.A. Nursing Association, will have their requests acceded to by the Government. He has steadfastly refused to entertain the notion that the Government will make any move to allow those people to belong to the association. I believe that in many ways the hon. the Minister’s attitude really amounts to a conflict in law, because here we are dealing with a Bill which says very clearly, in clause 1, that—

Yet the hon. the Minister would give a different interpretation of that because he has said there is an agreement between the Government of South Africa and the authorities in kwaZulu which did not make this possible.

I have indicated that the solution to that problem lies in the hands of this hon. Minister. He has the power to accede to the request of the kwaZulu Authorities and that is to change that agreement in order to incorporate Chapter IV of the Nursing Act, relating to the Nursing Association. The hon. the Minister has the power to do that, but he refuses to do it. He has the same sort of stratagem of saying that because of that agreement of 1977 it is illegal and he is not going to have anything to do with it. I should like to warn the hon. the Minister that despite all the nice words about having a non-racial situation, of not being influenced by racial considerations, the result is going to be that this hon. Minister, by introducing this Bill—and if the association is guided by the hon. the Minister—will be destroying the elements of goodwill which exist between nurses, certainly in the Province of Natal—the goodwill between both Black and White nurses. I believe this is opening up immense difficulties within the nursing profession within the Province of Natal.

I mentioned before that there is a frequent interchange of nurses between say Umlazi, which conveniently falls into kwaZulu, but which is only a few kilometres away from the large hospitals in Durban, and hospitals in kwaZulu proper. We are going to have a situation in which there will be nurses who will now be obliged to belong to a separate nursing association if they practise in kwaZulu, whilst, if they move to one of the larger hospitals in the city of Durban, they will have to belong to the S.A. Nursing Association. I believe this is a thoroughly bad decision. I also believe that the hon. the Minister and the people behind this Bill are being less than fair to the principle of having a non-racial nursing association in South Africa.

Therefore I believe that this is a bad interpretation of the Bill. We as a Parliament here are dealing with a Bill—we are actually passing a law—and we ought to be guided by the words of the Bill itself. If one reads the words of the Bill in this regard, one cannot take exception to them. Because of that, and also because of the positive provisions of the Bill, we clearly have to vote for it at Third Reading. My warning at this stage, however, is in respect of the interpretation given by the hon. the Minister, particularly in relation to the question of nurses in the so-called self-governing states. That interpretation does not square with the words of the Bill and I believe that that is going to present difficulties. This Bill is going to be placed as a law on our Statute Books but the hon. the Minister has already given indications in advance that he is not going to interpret the words of this Bill as they should be interpreted.

I therefore give that warning, and having given it, I reiterate, as I have stated earlier, that because of the other positive aspects of the Bill we will be supporting it. I do, however, give the very, very grave warning that in this respect the hon. the Minister’s interpretation is, I believe, going to cause a great many difficulties.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Berea and his party concede that they see more good points than bad in this legislation. Therefore we are grateful that we are at least in agreement to a large extent with regard to the provisions of the Bill under discussion.

Taking everything into consideration, one cannot but express appreciation for the high quality of the nursing care that is being maintained in our hospitals. If, in addition, we take into account the fact that this high level of performance often takes place under extremely difficult circumstances, we cannot but have respect for those who practise this noble profession. Therefore, we now want to express the confidence that this amending Bill, which has now reached the final stage before becoming law, will benefit the nursing profession. A continual struggle is being waged against problems in our hospitals and nursing institutions, for instance the problems of the provision of staff and inflation. However, the solution does not lie in continually emphasizing the extent of the problems and flinging reproaches at one another. The solution rather lies in co-operating with one another in order to take all possible practical steps to decrease the effect of the problems, and possibly to eliminate them altogether.

In the interests of our hospitals, in the interests of the sick in our hospitals, and also in the interests of the staff in our hospitals—they who have to care for the sick—it is absolutely essential for everyone who has anything to do with this, to help to combat the problem. This legislation is a step in the right direction. This legislation will provide for the needs of the nursing profession, but, alas, we do not always all assist in achieving this goal. Without trying to be suspicious, it is very noticeable that the colour connotation is continually being considered as an issue by the official Opposition. Let us look at what the hon. member for Berea said in his speech, just before he resumed his seat. I do not know what he definitely meant with this when he said that this amendment “is clearly to regulate and to manipulate race relations”. I repeat that it is noticeable that the official Opposition grasps every possible opportunity to drag the colour connotation into every conceivable law in order to suit themselves. [Interjections.]

In his Second Reading speech, the hon. member for Berea mentioned the Zulu nurses and kwaZulu nurses, whom he mentioned once again in his speech, and said that they will have to register at one of two nursing institutions or will not be allowed to register with the S.A. Nursing Association. He then said (Hansard, 20 August)—

Once again he says: “This would certainly seem to be a racial implication” and “it certainly goes against the whole principle of the association being non-racial”. In other words, his idea of racial differences is the difference between Black and White. What about all our Coloureds in the Cape who are also going to make use of this association? How on earth can the hon. member then allege that this association will not be a mixed association?

It is not always so that all of us, co-operate in the interests of South Africa and its problems as one would like to see, particularly South Africa’s problems with its mixed population.

There is room for improvement in the provision of nursing staff, particularly in the highly specialized groups. Salary increases are only one of the incentive measures. However, this is not the only way of providing a solution to the problem. The optimum utilization of staff at every hospital, even in every division of each hospital, must be guaranteed. This is efficiency. An analysis must be made of tasks that are carried out in hospitals in order to establish whether there are routine tasks that can be carried out by less skilled staff, etc. Therefore, we view this legislation in the sense that it provides for an improved nursing profession.

In the third place one would like to see this Bill having a positive effect. Problems and conflict between the various racial groups must not be seen in this legislation in any respect. It would be a happy day if we in this dear country of ours could make so many changes and adaptations that we would have an ideal nursing profession. With sincere gratitude for everything that the nursing profession does for the sick people in South Africa, it is a great pleasure for me too to support the Third Reading of the Bill.

Mr. Speaker, the NRP basically supports the sentiments expressed by the official Opposition in that they do not believe that professional bodies such as the medical, engineering and nursing associations should be racially oriented. We believe in principle that it is quite wrong that they should be racially oriented. However, we are not dealing in this instance with sentiment but, unfortunately, as I see it, with a legal issue. Whatever the origin of this clause to which objection has been taken, it appears to have been accepted by the Nursing Council and it puts into effect the agreements made with that particular body. The hon. member for Berea did indicate that at some stage he had had discussions with representatives of the kwaZulu Government and that they had said that they did not want to run their own show but that they were in favour of their nurses being members of the S.A. Nursing Association. However, I cannot help but feel that that is an unusual way of trying to amend an Act in this House. Surely the procedure should be to go through the proper Government channels, and it has not yet been made clear to me by the hon. member for Berea, or by any other hon. member of the official Opposition that this, in fact, has been done.

It was, as I said in the Second Reading, in respect of all those recommendations.

I have not heard of any documents to that effect but it may well be so. As I see it, the position at the present moment is such that we cannot unilaterally change this because it is not only kwaZulu that is involved. There are several other independent homelands which may or may not wish to be parties to the proposals of kwaZulu. We may have to make a separate deal with kwaZulu that would not apply to Bophuthatswana and the other independent homelands. I do, therefore, find myself in some difficulty in this regard. But for us to say here unilaterally that we will abrogate one of our own agreements with both kwaZulu and the other independent homelands, will be an unfortunate precedent. Although this in some ways appear to be a relatively minor matter—in saying this I do not want it to be misunderstood because in my view the nurses and nursing associations are extremely important people and bodies—if one can accept the principle of unilateral abrogation in this instance, what is to stop one introducing unilateral abrogation in so many other instances? This is one of the problems that we in the NRP find difficult to assess.

Another point that does rather perturb me is in regard to one of the basic principles to which one of the hon. members of the official Opposition referred. I was very, very surprised to find that a principle such as this had not been raised at the Second Reading and that it was only referred to during the Committee Stage. In the Second Reading debate the principle was not dealt with to any extent at all, as far as I could gather. [Interjections.] It rather surprised me, therefore, that it has come up with such force at this particular stage in the proceedings. In conclusion, although we support the hon. member for Berea’s sentiments about a racially orientated organization, in this instance we believe that it would be unconstitutional to make this change unilaterally, and therefore we must support the Bill as it stands.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Umbilo granted his support to the Bill before us. We are pleased that there is a great deal of unanimity in connection with this important measure. It is a very great step forward and cannot but be supported by all thinking, grateful people. In the case of a serious illness—and doctors and pharmacists are not always available—it is absolutely essential for a well-trained member of the S.A. Nursing Association to be able to carry out certain services in the future. It may happen that a medical practitioner or pharmacist are not available at a crucial moment and that is why we are grateful that this recognition will be granted to trained nurses.

Our nursing profession in South Africa today is a monument to hard work and dedication. Therefore, it is strange that it was only in the past century—this is not long ago, because time passes quickly—that this very important profession took its rightful place in the community. Before Florence Nightingale appeared on the scene, there was in fact a Protestant church in Germany that provided training to young ladies from good families whose purpose it was to nurse people. Florence Nightingale was actually the pioneer who established the nursing profession throughout the world, and that is why one can hardly think of this profession without calling to mind this excellent woman. That well-read young woman herself believed firmly that she heard the voice of God on 7 February 1837 telling her that He had a task for her to carry out. It was only nine years later that she realized what this meant. A friend in Germany sent her a treatise on the training school in Germany, and four years later she registered there.

In the military hospitals there were people who were opposed to her presence as a woman because the doctors of that time did not yet have the goodwill that exists towards nurses today. She encountered many anomalies in the military hospitals which she then set right to a large extent. She tended the wounded and sick day and night, and she soon became known amongst the wounded as “The Lady with the Lamp”. She was the founder of the British district nursing and training of midwives association in Britain. During her lifetime she gained a great deal of recognition—and even more after her death—as a founder of a profession that had a bearing on women in particular. This Bill grants extra recognition to nurses, and it is being done via a spirit of devotion for those people who mean so much to our country and to our people.

In our country there are also women who have done a great deal for nursing in South Africa. Here I am thinking in particular of Prof. Searle, Sister Latsky, later Dr. Latsky, and others who did a great deal in this regard and whose monuments will survive for many years to come. There are many professions in the world, and hardly any of them can be followed if one does not have the love and inspiration for them. To be a good nurse, it is not enough to be well paid. There must also be love for the task, because the working hours are not always easy and weekends are very often taken up. That is why I am grateful that the Nursing Amendment Bill is before the House tonight, because it grants further support to the South African Nursing Association and it also grants further recognition in South Africa to well-trained, competent career-oriented women—and men who also belong to the profession. That is why it is the hope of every well-meaning hon. member of the House that the lamp which Florence Nightingale lit in the last century, will shine even brighter than ever in the future.

Mr. Speaker, during the Committee Stage of this particular piece of legislation, there was a controversial discussion with regard to two aspects of clause 1. The hon. member for Berea has dealt very efficiently with the first aspect and I should like to deal with the second aspect once again. At the time the hon. the Minister of Health, Welfare and Pensions was put out by the comments that I made. He denied that the situation was such as I had described it and became very hot under the collar. I should like to address the hon. the Minister about this particular matter once again. It is easy for the hon. the Minister to say: “This is not so”, or “That is not so”. It is, however, very dangerous for him to say this because in the very recent past he has often been proved to be wrong with regard to statements he has made in many different respects. In this particular regard I am speaking of a very serious situation that has arisen in South Africa in that the nursing profession as a whole is very unhappy about the conditions of employment under which they have to work. It is not as if this is something which has come up in the recent past; the nurses have, for a very long time, suffered deprivation as a result of the fact that they have not been remunerated adequately for their services, and they have found it very difficult to live a normal, decent life on the salaries they receive.

We must take into consideration that nursing today requires of the people that practise that profession a high degree of expertise. They have to comply with very high standards in the examinations set for them and they have to maintain very high standards when they practise as nurses. They have to work very long and difficult hours and, under the present circumstances, there are nurses working 12 or 14 hours a day, sometimes 16 hours a day. They also have to carry very heavy responsibilities. Under all these circumstances, they are paid salaries which I think the hon. the Minister, if he were honest about it, would agree are totally inadequate and, in fact, are a disgrace when one compares them with the salaries that people earn in other professions of a similar nature. What have the nurses done about this? For many years they have quietly, responsibly and with restraint made representations to the Government via the Nursing Association for better conditions of employment and, in particular, for better salaries. What has the result of their patience and responsibility been over these long years? The result has been totally unsatisfactory in that the increases they have received have not materially improved their situation. In the ultimate, the result of all this is that the nurses are losing faith in the Nursing Association and they are dissatisfied with the leadership of the Association. Immediately the hon. the Minister will say that that is not so, that I am attacking the leaders of this association and that I am being disloyal to this wonderful profession. Of course, Sir, that is not so. It is my job to reveal the facts and the truth to this House and to the hon. the Minister. It is my job to report to the hon. the Minister what the nurses tell me. Every hon. member in this House must have received numerous complaints from nurses over the past few months with regard to their conditions of employment. The nurses have now reached the stage where they have become angry and disillusioned with their Nursing Association. I know that there are feelings among the nurses that if this association cannot achieve any results for them then they must form another association. What do they find, Sir? They find that the law precludes them from forming another association, that they are restricted to this one association and that this association cannot in fact achieve results for them. The nurses then say: Well, then, we must strike as our very last resort. We do not want to do it; we think it is unfortunate but if nothing else will help we must withhold our labour as a means of making urgent representations for an improvement in our conditions of employment. What do they find? They find that the law precludes them from striking because the Act contains a provision which precludes them from striking. There is then only one further step that it is possible for them to take and that is for them to say: We are going to change the constitution of our existing association because we cannot have another association and because we cannot strike. We are therefore going to change the constitution of this association in order to obtain the sort of leadership and the sort of association that will force this reluctant, incompetent Government to do something about our conditions of employment. What do they find now? The Government which knows what is coming to it has taken pre-emptive action and in this amending Bill a provision is now included—I am referring to clause 1(b)—which reads as follows—

Now, therefore, they cannot change their constitution because the hon. the Minister is in a position to block any change that will make it possible for them to take steps to bring about better conditions of employment.

What has happened here is that the Government has closed every legitimate, reasonable and responsible avenue of action to the nurses to enable them to improve their conditions of employment. I think this is a shocking disgrace because it denies the nursing profession in South Africa the means with which they can improve their conditions of employment under circumstances in which the Government has for years in an obdurate, obstinate and unwise manner refused to improve the conditions of employment of a sector of our community that is vital to the health and security of our nation. I want to say that I think it is most unfortunate that the hon. the Minister has included this provision in this Bill. He refused to accept the representations we made to him for its exclusion at the Committee Stage and he is continuing with his obstinacy. I want to warn him tonight and I want to warn the Government that there are many sectors in South Africa that are sick and tired of this Government. There are many sectors in this country who have been very loyal to the Government and to the country for a very long time. They have been prepared to make sacrifices in the national interest. However, I want to say that the nursing sector together with many other sectors including the teachers and others as well as the public servants have become totally sick and tired of this Government because they cannot expect a decent deal from them. The time will come when this Government will be faced with an angry response from these people, and I hope that, when that time comes, the Government will not throw their hands up and say that they did not know about this, that they could not do anything about it, that nobody told them about this. I am telling the hon. the Minister here and now: You are treating the nurses badly, shockingly, and you must expect that the time will come when they will no longer put up with the way in which they are being treated, and take matters in their own hands.

Mr. Speaker, I must say that, in spite of the lateness of the hour, I was astounded when I heard what the hon. member for Bryanston had to say. I do not know what came over him this evening. In any case, this is not the place to air his complaints concerning the nurses. [Interjections.] My Vote comes up for discussion tomorrow, and I told the Press and hon. members of this House, and consequently the hon. members for Berea and Hillbrow as well, that I would deal with these matters in the correct way under my Vote tomorrow and the day after. The hon. member must air any complaints which he may have during that discussion. I shall then deal with them. However, he chooses every and any opportunity to deliver a tirade here and then thinks that it is in the interests of the nurses. Let me tell the hon. member that the nurses despise him for the kind of arguments he raised here this evening. There is a legal body which was instituted by the nurses themselves. The hon. member may have an opinion of his own about them, just as they have an opinion of their own about him. But it makes no difference what he thinks of them. The nurses have the opportunity to change the constitution of the body by means of elections. But I want to tell him this evening that that body has, during the period of its existence, done more for the nursing profession than he will ever succeed in doing in his lifetime. Actually he is a disgrace, judging from the way he carried on about the nurses here this evening.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is it permissible for the hon. the Minister to refer to the hon. member for Bryanston as being a disgrace. [Interjections.] Mr. Speaker, I understand that when a point of order is being raised, the rest of the House should be quiet while you are considering it. Would you mind asking them to do it?

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw the word “disgrace”.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the word. This evening the hon. member for Bryanston carried on in such a way that it did not redound to the credit of the nursing profession. [Interjections.] This evening he insulted the people serving on the executive body of the Nursing Association, just as he did the other day. Those are people who, as the hon. member for Nigel said …

[Inaudible.]

I think the hon. member for Yeoville should now try to sit still. Apparently it is very difficult for him to do so, for every now and again he bobs up and down like a Jack-in-the-box. Mr. Speaker, I hope I do not have to withdraw “Jack-in-the-box” as well.

Why do you not try to get your blood pressure down instead of getting excited about me. I am not even talking to you.

Why does the hon. member not simply keep quiet?

I am not even talking to you. Mind your own business!

Order!

Why does the hon. member not sit still? I am talking to his bench mate. He has no courtesy. [Interjections.] Why does he not display some courtesy and decency?

If you want to be an hon. Minister, learn some manners!

Why do you not learn some manners?

I have manners, my friend.

Order! The hon. the Minister must proceed with his speech.

He must not display his Yeoville manners here. [Interjections.]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: Is it permissible for the hon. the Minister to insult the constituency of another hon. member by using the words “You must not display your Yeoville manners here”? [Interjections.] Yeoville manners are without doubt better than those of the hon. the Minister.

Order! I cannot allow that as a point of order. The hon. the Minister may proceed. [Interjections.]

The hon. member for Yeoville can simply keep quiet now. I shall not speak to him again. I am now speaking to the hon. member for Bryanston.

You do not exist.

But you do. [Interjections.]

Order! I cannot allow this type of dialogue to continue. The hon. the Minister must proceed with his speech.

The hon. member for Bryanston did the nursing profession a disservice this evening. If he is interested in the matter, he can attend the discussion of my Vote tomorrow. That is the right place to deal with this. I wish to reiterate that, as I began to say a moment ago, the hon. member for Nigel stated very directly and clearly that there were people in the top ranks of that association—Prof. Searle, Dr. Latsky and dozens of others—who in fact put the nurse in South Africa on the map as far as the nursing profession is concerned, and who gave them status.

No one is denying that.

Prof. Searle is the first person who turned nursing into a profession.

Everyone knows that.

Why does the hon. member then have the temerity to insult her in this House? I do not want to take this matter any further because I think that the remainder of what he said does not really warrant a reply. I shall deal further with nursing under my Vote tomorrow. The hon. member tried to make use of the Third Reading of this Bill to discuss things which he should raise under my Vote.

We are still going to show you a thing or two.

Yes, and I shall tell the hon. member a thing or two. That is no more than he deserves.

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: May the hon. member for Bryanston threaten the hon. the Minister by saying to him: “I am still going to show you a thing or two?” [Interjections.]

Order! The hon. the Minister may proceed.

I want to come to the hon. member for Berea. When he previously raised arguments, I answered him very fully. Perhaps I should just reiterate one small point that he does not seem to understand or want to understand. When kwaZulu opted for self-government, which no one forced on them, it meant that they would take control of their own medical services, there hospital services. Dr. Madide is their Minister of Health. In taking control of their medical services, they also took control of their nursing services. It is quite impossible for the S.A. Nursing Association to make representations to the kwaZulu Government for nurses in kwaZulu when the kwaZulu self-governing body has no jurisdiction over the S.A. Nursing Association. How can one have the dichotomy of one association being run by two different Governments?

But they asked for it. May I ask the hon. the Minister a question?

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, never mind the points the hon. the Minister has just made. As I have said, this has been asked for by the kwaZulu Assembly. I should like the hon. the Minister to tell me what the meaning of clause 1 is. It is not a permissive clause, but a compulsory one. It says—

My question to the hon. the Minister is whether he interprets this being permissive as regards a Black nurse in kwaZulu or being compulsory. The words in the Bill are “shall be a member”.

Mr. Speaker, I have explained this to the hon. member at great length. The clause provides that—

I explained to the hon. member very carefully that one cannot practise for gain in the nursing profession without being registered with the Nursing Association, or with the Nursing Council for that matter.

So every Black nurse in kwaZulu has got to be a member of the S.A. Nursing Association?

Every kwaZulu nurse who has a kwaZulu background and kwaZulu nationality and who works anywhere in Natal outside kwaZulu, in any provincial hospital, has to register with the association. Otherwise she cannot practise.

And in kwaZulu?

In kwaZulu a nurse can register with the kwaZulu Nursing Association, because there the S.A. Nursing Association has no jurisdiction over her.

That is not how I interpret this at all.

I do not think it is very difficult to understand. I explained to the hon. member that when kwaZulu opted for self-government it meant that they would also take over their own hospital and nursing services.

The hon. member argued the same point during the Second Reading stage and also during the Committee stage, and I do not think it makes any sense for me to keep on replying to the same questions over and over. The hon. member is welcome to read my Hansard, I have only just explained the same things again, and I do not believe it will serve any purpose if I should try to explain it any further.

*The hon. member for Swellendam furnished proof that we on this side of the House have a very great appreciation for the standard of nursing in our country. Throughout its period of office this Government has proved this. In fact, it is on record that nurses know where they can go with their problems. The hon. member also said that this legislation is a step in the right direction. I appreciate that remark of his. This legislation is also being introduced at the request of the association, as I explained earlier. The first clause, to which the hon. member for Berea referred, was inserted in the Bill at the request of the association. But now, quite suddenly, an attempt is being made to disparage the association in this House by arguing that it does not represent the nurses in this country. In addition nurses are now being egged on from this House to resign.

I think that is disgraceful.

Furthermore the nurses are also being urged to take matters into their own hands. I think the language being used by some hon. members in this House is disgraceful, and at the right time this will be conveyed to the nurses.

†I should also like to thank the hon. member for Umbilo for his support of this measure. Being someone with extensive experience of hospital administration, he obviously realizes the need for a Bill of this nature. That is why he has given us his support. I also want to thank him for the way in which he handled the matter. I believe he made it very clear that the measure was accepted by the S.A. Nursing Association and that the procedure that is to follow is actually what they have asked for.

*Once again I wish to convey my thanks to the hon. member for Nigel. He told the story of Florence Nightingale in a very interesting way. By referring to the heads of the nursing profession, Prof. Searle and Dr. Latsky, and then to Florence Nightingale in the same breath, he paid them a compliment of which both those persons can in fact be extremely proud. It is a good thing that we are taking cognizance of them in this way, particularly at a time when there are some hon. members in this House who are trying to belittle them.

In conclusion I want to say that I realize, with all the responsibility at my disposal, of what value the present legislation is. The one thing which hon. members of the Opposition do not seem to be able to understand, is that the moment the 1978 legislation comes into operation, the fourth chapter of the old Act will fall away. In fact, that is all that still remains of the old Act. This, too, is now going to fall away. As soon as that happens there is no way in which nurses in kwaZulu can continue to be subject to the provisions of this 1978 legislation. Surely that is only logical. Other national States, for example Gazankulu and Ciskei, already have their own associations, while Lebowa is in the process of acquiring its own association. This is because those States consider it to be a matter of pride to accommodate their own nurses, and in their own association, under their own Minister and under the auspices of their own Department of Health. What is wrong with that? What is wrong with being proud of being a Zulu, if you are one? [Interjections.] What is wrong with being proud if you are a person who is a member of the S.A. Nursing Association? The present legislation will not only be applicable to people from kwaZulu. If someone from Australia or from England wishes to come and work here, he or she must first register with the association before he or she can obtain pecuniary remuneration from nursing. Consequently the legislation does not apply only to Black people, but to anyone who wishes to come and practise nursing here.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a Third Time.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated during the Second Reading we are opposed to this clause and we shall accordingly vote against it.

By voting against this clause we seek to restore the position to what it was in 1980. We are dealing here with a clause concerning the rendering of accounts in so far as medical aid schemes are concerned. We are creating a situation whereby medical practitioners, dentists, supplementary health services, institutions, hospitals etc. that render accounts will now have to render such accounts to the patients direct. The only argument and motivation for this clause is based on the fact that there is now a duplication in that an account is sent both to the medical aid scheme and to the patient with the result that there is a little more administrative work attached to the operation of medical aid schemes. Therefore, to obviate this additional work and perhaps to obviate possible misunderstanding in that sometimes the account does not pinpoint precisely who the patient is or what the account number is, we are being asked to amend the Act and thereby change the system. But if we are to change the system we are going to create a situation whereby the number of doctors and dentists, for example, who have opted out may increase. We know, for example, that we are dealing with something like 294 medical aid schemes and we also know from our 1980 figures that 3 657 doctors and 935 dentists have already opted out. We are now actually favouring the argument of the medical aid schemes against the argument of the medical, dental and supplementary health professions and others who render accounts. We are now casting our vote in favour of the schemes as against these people. Are we doing the right thing? We suggest that we are not because we may be doing very serious harm to these professions in the sense that they may have to wait for something like 4½ months before they get paid. Perhaps many of them cannot afford to give credit for 4½ months. Surgical equipment, rent and staff are very expensive to maintain today. Therefore we are now going to encourage, and that is what we are afraid of, the medical, dental and supplementary health services to opt out. More people will now opt out because they will want their accounts paid immediately and will therefore not be prepared to provide these services. To a large extent we shall be throwing the baby out with the bath water because more and more people will opt out. If they do, then this hon. Minister is going to be placed in the predicament in which he was placed by legislation that was discussed in this House a year ago or so when he had to decide whether or not to give the professions the right to opt out. He permitted that right to remain but there was a very strong threat, as hon. members will remember, that he would take that right away from them. If we are now going to create not only dissatisfaction but eventually a confrontation between the hon. the Minister of Health, Welfare and Pensions and the medical profession, then I think we are going to create enormous difficulties.

That is our motivation and for that reason we oppose this clause.

Mr. Chairman, I should at the outset like to say that we support the hon. member for Hillbrow. There is, however, a question I wish to pose in regard to this Bill. Is there a very small minority abusing the system, if so why must the whole medical profession suffer? In fact, what you are doing here is punishing the majority because of the minority, and this, in our view, is over-legislating. This amendment is, in fact, creating a position in which the doctors will have to wait that much longer for their accounts to be settled. This, in turn, may well tempt the medical profession to seek higher tariffs to compensate for the position in which they find themselves. After all, the medical profession provides an excellent service of a very high standard to our community. Why then are they going to be subjected to this onerous legislation? The medical profession opts to contract into the medical schemes for various reasons—even to the detriment of the amount of money they could earn—one being to provide a service to their patients and to provide for a reasonable guarantee of their fees. Why must they be penalized by having to wait an additional period of time for their accounts to be settled? Some patients, with the greatest respect, are not going to be in any great hurry to forward the accounts they receive from the doctor to the medical aid scheme, for the simple reason that payment is not coming directly out of their pockets. This, whether we like it or not, is going to increase the outstanding accounts payable to the medical profession. We believe that this legislation is retrogressive and not in the general interests of the medical profession or the patients.

I should like to refer to the hon. the Minister’s Second Reading speech. He spoke firstly of the extra cost to the practitioner of sending duplicate accounts, and then he referred to the position of medical aid schemes by saying (Hansard, 21 August)—

I cannot accept that. Are we then saying that the medical schemes are inefficient, because that basically was the hon. the Minister’s motivation.

Business interrupted in accordance with Standing Order No. 22.