Chairperson, hon Ben Martins and other backbenchers present in the House, the Air Services Licensing Board basically licenses air services operating domestically within South Africa. Operations outside of South Africa, including SAA operations, fall under a different dispensation.
This is a small, technical amendment to the principal Act, the Air Services Act of 1990. Back in 1990, when they referred to chairpersons, they referred to them as "chairmen", and they referred to "hes" without "shes". We have obviously cleaned that up in this amendment.
More substantially, although not on a massive scale, we have also added other amendments. We've arranged for a consultation process that the Minister must pursue prior to selecting members for this, basically, advisory board. We said that, amongst the stakeholders who must be consulted by the Minister in putting together the board, organised labour should also be included.
We've also added an amendment, which allows for some kind of continuity in this board. In the principal Act, it just says that board members can serve for three years and that's it. That may be desirable in the case of the poorly performing members, but we want to allow for the possibility of continuity and therefore they can be reappointed for periods not exceeding three years.
Finally, we also allow for the Chairperson of the Air Services Licensing Board to be, potentially, a member of the Public Service and potentially, therefore, a member of the Department of Transport. We think that it is important to ensure that there's a dynamic link between the department, and the Minister specifically, and this board. That's basically it.
I am pleased to say that in the committee, as with many of the other pieces of legislation that the Portfolio Committee on Transport deals with, we had a very good consensus and we agreed that there was no need for a debate on this Amending Bill. Therefore the committee is happy to report on the consensus on this amending Bill. Thank you, Chairperson. [Applause.]
There was no debate.
Bill read a second time.