Mr Chairperson, this is a section 76 Bill, so the consent of the appropriate number of provinces is necessary. I am thus very pleased that there has been unanimous agreement in support of the Bill. I want to thank the standing committee for their co-operation. I take Gauteng's point about the longer period for consultation, but the Bill has been in the public domain for a long time now as it was issued at the end of June.
I particularly want to compliment Gauteng, because, quite clearly, they have gone through the Bill item by item, clause by clause. I am pleased that the department was able to co-operate with many of the provinces who called upon the departmental officials. Ours is a very small department. There effectively was not a national department of education until 1994, because it was not necessary to have a national department of education as there were 18 departments of education. Nogal! [At that!] Neither the House of Delegates, nor the House of Representatives, nor the Houses of the National Assembly, nor the homelands of one kind or another ever considered the necessity of looking at adults, the 6 million adults. It was not considered necessary.
I would like to say that education is not vrot [rotten], as has been said. It is not vrot and paralysed by disputes. There are enormous changes taking place. There is an enormous amount of goodwill on the ground, and these two Bills are part of that way of refashioning and renewing our educational system. Let me give you a word of warning: Passing these Bills is only one step. The implementation, as has been rightly said by Comrade Maloyi, places an enormous demand on the provinces to carry out what is a national aim and a national desire.
I thus want to thank the standing committee, this House, the National Assembly and the very hard-working officials for this. There were two or three points raised which I must reply to. I regret it very much that the representative from KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Panday, who raised points, is no longer in the House. I frankly think this is unacceptable in a democracy, because I think important issues are raised, and there must be a reply to that. I would say for the benefit, not of Mr Panday, but of other members, that the point he raised about clause 8(1) was a typographical error. It should refer to section 21(1)(dA). It was a typographical error and the President will be informed. These things happen, because our administrative staff have to work overnight.
There is another defect in this which nobody has mentioned, namely we should never legislate by reference to other legislation. It is not fair to members of Parliament to have legislation by reference. In other words, members will have to go to the library and look up the provisions of the earlier Acts.
We committed ourselves in 1994 that Acts should be complete in themselves so that no teacher or trade union has a problem with going to the public library to look up what, for instance, section 21(1)(dA) of the South African Schools Act says. That should apply to all legislation, because we are very proud in the Education Department that all our legislation is easy to understand. It will put the lawyers out of business, because one can read the wretched legislation before one. It should be normal legislation by reference. It must be quite clear in that all the provisions must be complete in the legislation. That is the answer to Mr Panday. It is an error.
The other one about protocols I do not understand, I say to Mr Panday. We work in co-operative governance. We work very closely with the provincial MECs. We write three-monthly reports on the performance of the provincial administration to the President. It is the public domain, and I hope the present copy is in the library.
I want to inform Mr Williams that, of course, if there is an error the error must be corrected. This is not being deceitful, or lying or being party-political. We worked on the basis that we were told by the province that of the nine priorities we established in Tirisano, the province would not subscribe to the one on illiteracy, because no money had been allocated. So we worked on that basis. If Brian Figaji has worked out a programme, then we will receive the programme and correct the three-monthly report. However, the Western Cape was the only province to say that they were not going to participate in the literacy programme, because no money has been allocated.
I do not want to make any judgments about this. I will rely on the very moving, eloquent expression by Mrs Witbooi. However, I regret to say that the province speaks in two voices. There was this very moving eloquent statement by Mrs Witbooi when she said each illiterate person is half a person. I am grateful for Mr Williams' statement with regard to the department and the Minister and what they are doing, but I regret very much that he speaks as if he is speaking at a Nuremberg rally, or at a circus, frankly. [Laughter.]
While the last part of his speech was promotive, about us working together, he combined the role of the circus clown with the Nuremberg rally. [Laughter.] This is not, in fact, the way we should do this.
I have a statement here, which says that the Western Cape has the most efficient administration. As Minister, I am not in the business of handing out Hollywood awards. What award do I give to the candidate for mayor here, who subverts for young people the extraordinary integrity of our Constitution? He said that our Constitution was drafted by communists and fellow travellers. I am surprised he forgot to mention homosexuals, gays, one-legged people, liberals, because these are all the swearwords that were used before 1994. It is really a question of the so-called ``swart gevaar'' dressed up as the ``rooi gevaar''.
The DA should really withdraw him from the mayoral stakes. There can be no confidence in one of the most important cities in South Africa if, in fact, the candidate says that one must choose between the Bible and the Constitution. What an enormously harmful and offensive thing to say!
May I remind Mr Williams that the Constitutional Court found, in the Grootboom case, that the Western Cape, which is under the DA, unlike other provinces, fell short of its constitutional responsibility to build houses for the poor. The court ruled that there were good plans in place but that there was no proof that they were given effect. The Constitutional Court is the highest court of the land. Mr Marais, of course, says that it is a creation of the communists, no doubt, but it is the highest court. It ruled that the Western Cape was defective in its obligations. I know this because at Wallacedene an order was also made to provide minimum water. I can tell the House that the Western Cape is very good, looking at it as Minister of Water Affairs, except at looking after the interests of the poor and the impoverished. [Interjections.]