Chairperson, those who represent this Parliament in the IPU will be representing this Parliament as a whole, not a single component of this Parliament. As such they need to receive a mandate, and the mandate is given on this occasion. The mandate, in my opinion, must reflect the variety of views expressed here as well as the challenges confronting this Parliament.
Undoubtedly, this Parliament has gone a long way in the past 16 years, but it needs to be confronted with challenges. Challenges are the things which need to be discussed, not the achievements. Challenges lie ahead of us while achievements lie behind us. I want to mention a few challenges which could form the object of discussions with our counterparts internationally. The one thing I am particularly involved in is the challenge of reinstating the rights of Members of Parliament to introduce legislation. It does appear - and this was not my reading but a case by the Speaker of this National Assembly - that this is the only Parliament known to democracy in which Members of Parliament need to receive prior permission before being able to introduce a private member's Bill.
The Speaker argued in court that this is a unique feature of our democracy. Only South Africa is said to have the unique feature of requiring prior permission. This would make this Parliament unique, not in promoting, but in curtailing parliamentary democracy.
There is also the issue of capacity. The level of capacity that each of us is provided with - secretarial, legislative and administrative assistance - is appallingly low. That goes to our capacity for performing our functions. It is real; it is part and parcel of what a parliamentary democracy is. Let us try to see what the international standard is to capacitate Members of Parliament.
There is an issue on questions. I and many of my party colleagues, such as the hon Smith, who is not here - and I understand this also applies to some of the DA members - have a repeated problem with questions in Parliament. Our questions have been censored, for lack of a better word. We ask Question A but what comes out is Question B, which is a much lower and softer version of Question A, without our approval.
This has been done to the point that one of my questions was not even asked. This was the question on whether any telephones of any members of the House are under the control of the National Intelligence Agency. The staff of this Parliament took it upon themselves to say that the question was inadmissible, even though the very same question had been asked during the dark days of apartheid. The Minister then took it upon himself to say he was not going to answer, even though the chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee on Protection of Information Bill - I'm not sure if he is here; oh, there he is - as well as Parliament's liaison officer and the Minister responsible for Intelligence gave me their assurance that the question could be put and that the Minister would entertain the question. Six months later, I still have not be able to put a question to a Minister because the parliamentary staff feel that it is their role to question what can be asked and what cannot be asked of a Minister. That is the problem of this Parliament.
Let's look at other challenges. We saw one today, with the Immigration Amendment Bill. There you have a Bill which has been put out for public comment. All the public comments, without any exceptions, unequivocally rejected the Bill, and this Parliament passed it. We need to transform form into substance. This has happened in several pieces of legislation in which I am involved, where consulting the public is still a perfunctory exercise and the process of passing legislation continues to be driven by the executive.
These are real challenges which, through our dialogue with our counterparts internationally, we will surely overcome, fulfilling the promise of making this an activist Parliament in promoting the full measure of democracy which it has promised to perform under the Constitution. Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]