Madam Deputy Speaker, Professor James earlier talked about the cost of government talking. The greatest part of the cost is the opportunity cost. There is in the English language a beautiful, archaic word, "velleity". Velleity is volition which does not come into the fruition of action. We have seen a great deal of velleity within government. Government does not make money; it can only spend money. Social programmes need to have a higher rate of economic growth to be financed. Government's Growth, Employment and Redistribution strategy, Gear, began with a 6% estimated growth rate and ended up with 3%.
We need to do something fundamentally different, or this may be remembered as the season of lost opportunities. A crisis offers an opportunity for restructuring. We have missed the opportunity; we are in the process of missing it.
Hon George made reference to the Bric countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - which are products of fundamental restructuring made ahead of need with vision. They are ready to go. We are still within the mould of an economy shaped by international sanctions, by economic isolation and by a government programme that keeps alive what is not viable, with a constant transfer of money from the aggregate of paying, innocent taxpayers to the industry.
If we are serious about dealing with the major problem of this country, which is unemployment, we need to have the courage to implement the policy which we heard the Minister of Finance - who is not here - the Minister of Trade and Industry - who is not here - and the Minister of the National Planning Commission - who has somehow left the House - mention very often, which is that of reducing the excessive costs of the Rand which makes our country uncompetitive. This is the easiest way of putting people to work and having products capable of being exported.
The issues, too, on which there has been a great deal of debate, are about how we should manufacture partnerships between government and state, the assistance of the state, and moving beyond the model of free-market enterprise if we are to have a developmental state. That would be a wonderful world, but the issue confronting this country, like any other country in the global village, is not how but what are we going to produce? What are we going to manufacture? This is crucial, and I do accept what hon Ngonyama said. He said that the state should be ...