Mr Speaker, hon President, hon Deputy President, and hon members, the UDM supports Vote No 1. [Applause.] My address today will focus on the proposed National Planning Commission.
In 1999 we handed in, in this House, to the then President of the Republic, a UDM policy document titled, "The challenge of our time: Government must do more". Back then, already, we identified the challenge facing the nation as follows:
There is no consensus on a macroeconomic policy that can transform the economy in a manner that could create and spread wealth wider and improve the lot of the disadvantaged majority.
In the same policy document we argued strongly for the need to convene an economic indaba from which the nation could emerge with a coherent economic vision shared by all, as we did in the '90s, to find a political solution for this country.
The work of the National Planning Commission, as well as the public debate initiative of the Minister of Economic Development, would be more effective if they were guided by the resolutions taken by the nation at the suggested economic indaba. We should not put the cart before the horse. The National Planning Commission and other economic initiatives by government need to draw their terms of reference from the suggested economic indaba, otherwise we are likely to waste another three or four years on a talk-shop.
Indeed, following the economic indaba the National Planning Commission's first order of business should be to conduct a proper audit of our resources and to manage it for future generations; not the current situation in which there seems to be a free-for-all of looting of state resources, such as the Chancellor House-Eskom deal and similar schemes.
What we need is the political will to finish the transition that was started at the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, Codesa. Indeed, this government has had a mandate, since 1994, to find a policy consensus on the burning economic issues of unemployment and poverty. Instead, that mandate has been dodged in order to maintain a status quo in which one third of the adult population is unemployed and the vast majority of people own less than a quarter of the land.
At the envisaged economic indaba, we could ask questions about, for example, the extent to which some of the sunset clauses have become an impediment to the economic advancement of the majority. For how long, Mr President, will the millions who live in the desolate former Bantustans and townships that were the dumping grounds of apartheid, accept their lot?
As long as we fail as a country to acknowledge this main cause of conflict in this country, namely an economic policy that fails to include all South Africans, we are heading for a major disaster. Already, the signs of civil uprising are visible in many communities.
A transformed economic order will give impetus to other social and educational programmes that are designed to truly integrate our society and create a new democratic South African ethos.
Finally, Mr President, I agree with you: The growing culture of anarchy and violence in this country is a matter of grave concern. The rights to public protest and industrial action are freedoms that we cherish. They include the right to publicly protest about the lack of service delivery, which is why we should not allow these freedoms to be abused. It is becoming commonplace for public marches to be characterised by death threats, malicious damage to private and government property and the assault of people. Hundreds of millions of rands' worthy of damage have been caused by arsonists burning down trains, buses, councillor homes and even libraries. We need decisive leadership to counter this, but it must be coupled with greater responsiveness from government.