Chair, members of the House, the IFP will not be supporting these Bills today. We have problems not only with the content, but largely with the process. These Bills were presented to us on Tuesday and voted on on Thursday, and to be honest with you, it is quite astonishing that one is expected to look at a Bill comprising 50 pages of amendments - here is page 1 and here is page 50, if you think that I am exaggerating - in five seconds and vote on it.
I have been here for 15 years and I have never yet been in a committee where pages of amendments are placed before a committee without even being read. They simply said: "What do members think? Is it OK? Ja, fine. OK, any questions? Move on." As if everybody is an Einstein or everybody has studied the amendments before. There was such a rush to get this thing through that there was not enough time given to deliberating on the content, and we find this highly problematic.
In fact, the whole process, to be honest, Chair, was a charade. And the reason for that is that this is a Bill that has been returned from the NCOP. And because the NCOP only voted on it on Tuesday, and we were voting on Wednesday, had we effected any amendments, it would have had to go back to the NCOP or for mediation, and the ANC didn't want mediation; they wanted it approved. So why bother scrutinising it? We are going to rubberstamp it anyway! Which is what we did, at the behest of the executive, anyway.
So that is a hell of a problem, Chair, and we really think this is unacceptable, because it makes a complete mockery of the principle of the separation of powers. The executive comes along to us and says: "Hey, please pass this thing quickly." And the little committee sits there and says, "Ja, baas." Rubberstamped! That is not the way Parliament is meant to operate. So we are very unhappy.
And let me add to that: The problem is that there has been no consultation whatsoever in the NA. Now, it is quite true that in the NCOP they consulted everybody. I don't care what they did in the NCOP. It's got nothing to do with the National Assembly. We have a duty in the National Assembly to say, "Is the content of these amendments correct or not?" Nobody came to us, no inputs were received from civil society, nothing came from the House of Traditional Leaders, and we were expected to say, "Fine. No problem." That is not the way it should be done either, Chair.
So we think this Bill should have been prioritised for next year and we could have given it due consideration. It is really sad for the legislature to be a lapdog of the executive. [Time expired.] [Applause.]