The hon Deputy President is a valuable member of the ANC team. [Interjections.]
For a brief moment, the hon Mazibuko spoke extremely movingly about the plight of the unemployed poor. She asked us to put ourselves in the place of a mother without work or without food for her family. She asked us to imagine being a young person with little hope of finding employment. [Interjections.] It was very moving and I wanted to believe in the sincerity of what she was saying, but then hon Trollip stood up and the spell was broken, because the concern of the DA for the unemployed poor is at best a 19th century philanthropic concern. The DA's real interest in the unemployed is as cannon fodder to be deployed against the employed, the working poor and the labour movement.
When the hon Trollip dealt with the recent strikes in the Boland, De Doorns and elsewhere, he had a lot to say about unruly worker behaviour. He accused, in fine apartheid-era style, Cosatu personalities and others of being agitators and "opstokers" [instigators] ... [Interjections.] ... although, truth be told, Cosatu had very little to do with the original strike ... [Interjections.] ... and played a constructive role in seeking a settlement. [Interjections.]
Not a word was said by hon Trollip about the systemic violence experienced ... [Interjections.] ... day in and day out by farm workers. Not a word was said by him about the main disease profile that the local De Doorns Stofland Clinic is dealing with. [Interjections.] It was very interesting, when the hon Davies went to speak to the clinic ... [Interjections.] ... about what the major diseases they are dealing with were, he expected them to say HIV/Aids or tuberculosis - and those are problems - but what he discovered was that the major problem there was malnutrition in Stofland, De Doorns, at the public clinic ... [Interjections.] ... particularly amongst the children of labour-brokered Lesotho and Zimbabwean workers on these farms. We keep being told about their wonderful contribution to food security. [Interjections.] Food security for whom, one wonders. [Interjections.]
For the DA, if you are poor and passive you can be pitied, but the moment you are working for a boss you have crossed the line. If you are employed, even at starvation wages and especially if you rise up no longer just as a victim but as a protagonist for change, then the paternalistic mask of empathy quickly slips away. [Applause.] Suddenly, the hon Mazibuko's empathy for the poor and the downtrodden flies out of the window. [Interjections.]
The MEC for Agriculture in the Western Cape is completely conflicted. He's a farm owner. The leader of the DA here in the Western Cape, Theuns Botha, is completely conflicted. He's a farmer. [Interjections.] Premier Zille is, in this case, completely electorally conflicted. She didn't know whether to back her farm owner supporters or her potential coloured voters in the matter ... [Interjections.] ... and she issued perhaps one of her most disgraceful statements ever. Flirting with a potentially xenophobic tinderbox, she attributed the strikes and unrest to rivalry between coloured farm workers, African workers from the Eastern Cape and labour- brokered Basotho and Zimbabwean workers. [Interjections.] There have been interethnic tensions in previous years in this place. [Interjections.] What was absolutely remarkable about last year and this year with regard to the farm worker actions is the remarkable class unity demonstrated by coloured, African and non-national workers ... [Applause.] ... united in struggle against oppression and super-exploitation. [Applause.]
The opposition parties pay lip service to the NDP, and then distort it. They play the same game when it comes to the Constitution. The hon Mazibuko's - again in the Sunday Independent - response to the state of the nation address informs us in regard to the challenges of land reform that the Constitution prescribes the willing-buyer, willing-seller principle. Which constitution is that? [Interjections.] Is it this Constitution of our country that we are proud of? [Interjections.] Let's quote the actual Constitution that prescribes something very different. The Bill of Rights, section 25, subsection 5, prescribes:
The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures... to foster conditions which enable citizens to gain access to land on an equitable ...
[Interjections.] ... not market based ...
... basis. If you want to accuse us of not complying with the Constitution, then accuse us of not moving rapidly enough with land reform. Accuse us of being too slow to move away from a purely market-based, willing-buyer, willing- seller approach ... [Applause.] ... but don't deliberately distort the Constitution for your own reactionary purposes. [Interjections.] It is outrageous! [Applause.]
It is unparliamentary to accuse another member of lying to, or of deliberately misleading this House ... [Interjections.] ... so I will refrain from making any such accusation. [Interjections.] This is where the hon Mphahlele, with good intentions, got it wrong. [Interjections.] It's true that European settlers dispossessed the indigenous majority of South Africans of their land, but hon Mphahlele, don't let minority interests now, in the present, dispossess the majority of the very meaning of our Constitution, including the so-called property clause.
Yes, we will move rapidly and determinately ahead with the land reform process, especially in this centenary year of the barbaric and awful 1913 Land Act. As we do so, we will stick to the precise letter and the transformational spirit of the Constitution. The Constitution outlaws any arbitrary deprivation of property. That is absolutely correct. The state may expropriate only in terms of a law of general application for a public purpose or for public interest.
The Constitution explicitly defines public interest to include - and listen carefully - the nation's commitment to land reform, and to reforms to bring about equitable, again the word that they don't want to hear, access to all South Africa's natural resources. It adds, for good measure, that property is not limited to land: All South Africa's natural resources, is what the Constitution says. [Interjections.] Hon Mphahlele, don't let them steal your land and then steal the Constitution as well. [Laughter.] We don't need to abandon the Constitution. Let us drive the Constitution and its spirit forward.
In the course of her speech yesterday - and I am sorry to pick on hon Mazibuko, but she is representing the opposition and claims to represent the ... [Inaudible.] [Interjections.] ... she let slip ... [Interjections.] ... a very interesting state of mind. [Interjections.] There was an interesting moment and I'm not sure if the President noticed it. One can see that what their focus groups and their pollsters - because they are in a constant electoral frenzy ... quite right, you have to be in a frenzy - are telling them is that they are coming across as too negative. [Laughter.] They are too carping. They must give hope. So, towards the end there was an interesting shift. It's a shift that we have not heard and which the rest of their speakers failed to follow up on, so they were off- message. However, the Leader of the Opposition tried to give hope and so ... [Interjections.] ... having said all the negative things that they always wind out and ... [Inaudible.] ... up and so forth, she said, there is hope. [Interjections.] [Laughter.] One day, she said, and she was obviously looking through a very long-range telescope into some distant and very speculative future ... [Laughter.] ... the DA will win the national majority and then there will be a day ... [Inaudible.] ... when the DA will serve the entire country. [Interjections.] Now, that gives the game away. They don't think that they are serving the entire country now, in the present. [Interjections.] [Applause.] [Since 1912, the ANC understood, representing the interests of an African majority, that it was there to serve the entire country. We didn't wait for 1994, when we got an electoral majority before understanding that as the ANC had a responsibility to lead South Africa towards freedom ... [Applause.] ... democracy, nonracialism and so forth. They are still waiting for some distant future, and then they will begin to serve the entire country. [Interjections.]
Now that's not an accident, because it relates to their divisiveness of provincialism. [Interjections.] They think that politics in South Africa is like some Absa Currie Cup interprovincial competition. [Laughter.] That's different from us. [Interjections.] As the ANC, we celebrate the victories and we have done so. The ANC speakers have talked about wonderful things that have happened in the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, along with any other wonderful things. We have done that. We celebrate progress that happens in this province like in any other province, and we are concerned about problems and challenges in all the provinces of South Africa ... [Interjections.] ... but, of course, we are constantly treated to DA boasting about how well the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town is doing, as if it were simply down to them. Historic advantages, the absence of a Bantustan legacy ... [Interjections.] ... and other deep structural realities are just blotted out. [Interjections.]
At the risk of getting into their game, let's play the game. I don't want to get sucked into it, but let's do it. Let's look at comparative provincial statistics for what this House all agrees is the most important priority of our country. There are many priorities, but all agree that the most important priorities are unemployment and job creation. Let's look at that in provincial relative terms, at the risk of getting into a Currie Cup competition. [Laughter.] If we look at the market statistics for what we in the ANC government call the NGP period, which is the third quarter of 2010 to the third quarter of 2012, we find a very interesting pattern. [Interjections.] In terms of the change in employment numbers per province for this period, it will come as no surprise that in terms of sheer numbers, Gauteng province does the best, with 217 000 more in employment over this two-year period. [Interjections.] It's not surprising, as Gauteng has advantages. There has been massive urbanisation. There are massive challenges, but it's the largest province in terms of demogracy. [Interjections.] We need to understand that and we do. Interestingly, Limpopo comes a close second with an increase of 184 000 jobs in this two- year period, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 124 000. The Western Cape does very well. It comes in fourth with an increase of 56 000 for the same period. [Interjections.] Now, 56 000 is not an easy achievement in a climate of economic recession and so on. We are not celebrating this. [Interjections.] I am patronising, as you need some patronising every now and again. [Laughter.]
The youth figures are the same. [Interjections.] I am not quoting these figures in order to play the same game. What I am saying is ... [Interjections.] ... let us take responsibility for our country. Let us not play narrow, divisive games of one province against another, one party against another, one Minister against another, the unemployed against the employed, wage labourers and so on. [Interjections.]
In the course of this state of the nation debate the opposition parties have once more sidelined themselves from the broad, consensus-building processes under way in our country to address our many challenges, whether in the mining sector, youth unemployment, and so forth.
Mr President, in your response tomorrow, I am quite sure that you would once more - you are presidential - generously invite the opposition parties to come aboard and to leave their high perch of self-righteousness and join the rest of South Africa in the complex process of consensus-building, which is well under way, as we progressively roll back unemployment, poverty and inequality. Whether they will hear you tomorrow, I don't know. [Laughter.] Thank you, Deputy Speaker. [Applause.]