Chairperson, hon members, Deputy President, there is a difference between a governing party and parties that want to govern. There is always a difference. These parties never governed a single country and they want to make South Africa a banana republic. We, as the ANC, will not allow that. [Interjections.]
The President's reservations on the Bill were not just about technical errors, as is alleged by the minority parties here. To go on and say that the President had fallen foul of the Constitution by failing to give Members of Parliament an exact brief is baffling. What brief did you expect from the President? In the committee, we were saying - hon Smuts will understand that -that section 79(1) of the Constitution is prescriptive and that is why the President directed us to clauses 42 and 45. Do you disagree that those clauses needed attention? [Interjections.]
I hear people talking here. It is a pity, hon Smuts, that you are not the one who talked here as it is always the arrangement in your party. I know what is happening there. [Laughter.] What Cope said here, if you were listening, is really confusing. That Cope member was a political tourist in the committee. [Laughter.] He would come and never read a document without wearing the glasses of the DA. Whenever he read a document, he would borrow glasses from the DA and read with the mind of the DA. That is why he said here what he had said.
They say the referral was vague, yet it is they who are saying from this podium the President referred us to clauses 42 and 45. [Interjections.] I wonder how vague is that? I do not even think you have read the letter, because you were never there when we as the committee read the letter.
Hon Ambrosini was saying - in fact it was not the first time that hon Ambrosini opened a can of worms ...
Uvula nje itoti yeentshulube yena. [He opened a can of worms.
Hon Ambrosini said that was an opportunity to start from clause 1. That was not the brief. I have never seen what I saw in that committee. Lawyers were fighting about who the best lawyer was. Lawyers did not trust their own intellectual capacities, but would rely on other opinions. I could not believe that. The fight was between hon Dene Smuts and hon Ambrosini. The one was saying there is a lawyer whose opinion we as a committee need to take. And the other one said, I brought that opinion. We had to listen to such things, instead of dealing with what the President had referred to the committee.
It is a pity hon Ambrosini is not well, because he was writing letters complaining that he was not informed about meetings. I have proof from this Table and the Secretary that he was informed about meetings, but he did not go to the meetings, perhaps because of his ill health. Oh! There he is. [Laughter.] [Interjections.] You were sent an SMS at 05:35 on 7 November.