Mr Speaker, I too want to add my voice in thanking the hon John Jeffery for his kind and competent chairmanship of the subcommittee. This Bill is indeed a Bill of extreme complexity and we worked very hard on it. I do not wish to detract from anything that has been said by my colleagues. The Bill does bring about what has been indicated as its purpose. The finality and objective set out by my colleagues have been reached. What my concern has been throughout the entire process is what lies in the details. They say that the devil is in the details and this Bill has a great amount of detail behind which any devil can hide. Mine is not to decide; mine is only to influence the decision-making of others. I tried to work as hard as I could in the committee to influence the decision-making by my colleagues and intentionally withdrew from the last part of the deliberation process, which did see the acceptance of some of the suggestions made by me and my party. I am extremely thankful to the ANC and the other colleagues for that.
However, I remain concerned by the scope of application of this Bill. The nature of this Bill is that it applies to everyone in this House, in all its complexities and all its obligations. That will automatically make the conduct of the overwhelming majority of South African citizens non- compliant with the law, and wrongful. It will then be up to the regulator to decide in respect of whom to enforce the law. There will be a notice of compliance, after which there will be a criminal sanction.
This type of selective enforcement against a general type of application is a matter that has been sought to redress by proposing amendments that would make the Act applicable only where a code was adopted. So, there will be segmented implementation that will follow the pain - wherever there is pain in society - with an adequate remedy, rather than placing a remedy ahead of pain. However, this is an issue that will perhaps be carried over to further stages of discussion and deliberation and it needs overwhelming features characteristic of purpose. This is a Bill that we cannot but support. [Time expired.]