Madam House Chairperson, as I was listening very carefully to the speakers who preceded me and trying to have a sense of this debate, two concerns or ideas rolled around in my mind. The first is that I have foundout myself, together with many other colleagues in the past three months, after spending about 40 hours discussing how we don't have time to every now and then spend an hour in this House discussing a vote of no confidence.
The second concern that I had was the purpose of a debate like this. A party like ours and many others have made extensive submissions to the National Planning Commission on effective proposals on what can be done to turn the country around. In Parliament at this late hour, in an empty House, we collect this potpourri of ideas, this collage of notions relating to all that which counts in the very great equation of what makes life worth living and what government can do to achieve that goal.
I would rather see a parliament which focuses on a single issue and has the courage to drive the issue ahead in spite of government not moving. I would rather see a parliament which adopts resolutions, binds the executive and enforces action. I would rather see a parliament which intervenes with its own legislation. We all agree that the flexibility of the labour market is a problem and that this Parliament should do something of its own accord to amend the Labour Relations Act, even where the executive seems to have its hands tied.
I would have liked to see this Parliament taking the initiative in ordering the executive to implement the youth subsidy, which was at one point a matter of general consensus. These are the opportunities that this Parliament loses time and again and replaces with the satisfaction of having an omnibus debate about how to achieve freedom and happiness in small packages capable of being distributed to everyone.
The other thing that went through my mind is that, yes, we are having this debate, but we can't really have a debate over Nkandla. The Speaker will not allow that because that is not a matter of public importance. However, a general debate about happiness for all seems to be important. I do not want to ridicule what we are doing here. I think it is important that we discuss it, but for as long as we discuss the formula for happiness, and if that is all we are doing, I think we are failing the great potential that Parliament has to transform dreams into reality through something called volition.
There is an ancient English word which unfortunately has fallen away in institutions, it is called velleity. Velleity is the lowest form of volition. It is the volition that does not turn into action. We must make sure that in this and in other debates this Parliament does not fall prey to and become guilty of exactly that - of velleity - of merely wishing and hoping rather than mastering the strength of forging solutions through the powers that the Constitution gives us as a Parliament. We should not wait for the executive. Parliament is there to give policy instructions to the executive and pass legislation to solve the many problems that have been so correctly identified by the speakers preceding me. Thank you. [Applause.]