Madam Deputy Speaker, I speak through you to the Minister. In previous debates, Minister, when I, on behalf of my party, expressed relevant concerns, you saw fit not to respond and to dismiss them on the basis of two grounds: on account of my nationality and on account of "ideological differences" between my party, or myself, and the ANC. On this occasion, Minister, I would like to point out how erroneous it is to refer to nationality. We would surely not do so in respect of your ethnicity when discussing matters of this nature. As for ideological differences, it sort of concerns us because, on our side, we have no ideology. We are pragmatists. In that statement, Minister, you suggest that you do have an ideology. That begs the question of what your ideology is. Perhaps this is what one may try to discern through the words and proposals of your Budget.
We are not opposing this Budget, because it is moving in a better direction. We appreciate the greater emphasis on and the greater allocations to capital expenditure at the expense of current expenditures. However, that takes place in an environment in which further growth is heavily subsidised by government. In a context in which we are expecting government-funded growth, this Budget begins to mark the merger between fiscal policy and industrial policy. Industrial policy is conceived and implemented within a strictly national context, to the exclusion of foreign competition or the real potential of international competitiveness. The Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Bill will have such an effect, as will the special preferential procurement proceedings.
So, it is a Bill that extends the welfare state to industrialists, in the hope that they may employ people and one day may grow independent of the protections from international competition and the subsidies. In that sense, the Budget is a nationalist Budget and a socialist Budget. It is socialist because it extends the welfare state beyond the 18 million people already dependent on it to industrialists and all those employed by such industrialists, in conditions of noneconomic viability. That is the ideological concern that emerges. [Time expired.]