GOOD Speech by Patricia de Lille,
GOOD Leader
11 November 2023
Distinguished guests, members of the media, fellow South Africans.
Good afternoon, goeie middag, dumela, molweni.
I also want to take this opportunity to give a big GOOD welcome to our guest speaker today: Mr Songezo Zibi, the leader of Rise Mzansi.
But most importantly, let me extend my warmest greetings and welcome you – the Members of the GOOD Party.
This is your Conference. Our Conference. The inaugural National Conference of this party that we have all worked so tirelessly to build since we began this journey almost five years ago.
Today, the eyes of the people of South Africa, and its political establishment, will be on us.
They will be watching the decisions that we take, our discipline and the seriousness with which we engage the most important policy issues that face the people.
They will want us to elect capable and ethical leaders, and show that we as a party have the wisdom, maturity and strength to implement our ideas in government.
Brief History and Ideology
GOOD was founded on the 5th February 2019, just months before the 2019 National General Election.
In that short space of time, we won enough support to win two seats in the National Assembly, and enter the Western Cape Provincial Legislature.
In the 2021 Local Government Election we more than doubled our support, adding 50 councillors to represent our party in communities across the country.
With that success comes responsibility, and we must always remember what it was that drove us to found this movement in the first place.
GOOD was formed because it had become clear that the ‘old parties’ had turned their back on the people of South Africa, and no longer care about the people. GOOD was formed because the social democratic political space in South Africa had been vacated.
Social democracy means caring for our fellow human beings. It means love and compassion, rather than power and self-interest. It means fulfilling the vision of socio-economic rights painted by our historic Constitution.
Perhaps above all, social democracy means justice. And it is justice that GOOD stands for. Social Justice. Spatial Justice. Economic Justice. And environmental justice.
Friends, South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. Pockets of wealth and privilege are surrounded by dire states of poverty and unemployment. The majority of people are still excluded from land, from housing and economic opportunities. Unfortunately, today, only a few people are tasting the fruits of what our new democracy can offer.
We have unfinished business.
We cannot accept the unfairness that still lingers in this land that we fought so hard to liberate. We must work harder. And fight the GOOD fight forever. And fight it together, so that the benefits and opportunities of the new South Africa are available to the many, and not the few.
Political Context
In roughly nine months, South Africans will go to the polls in what is arguably the most crucial election since 1994. The evidence suggests that the ruling party stands to fall short of a governing majority for the first time in the democratic era.
The problems that our new democracy inherited in 1994 were vast and complex. We must not underestimate the difficultly that we faced in transforming every facet of society to be free from discrimination and inequality.
But 30 years later, South Africa is still in decline, and the excuse of history will no longer cut it.
And history also suggests that when a liberation movement falls, chaos can reign in its place. The end of an era of electoral dominance breeds pockets of populism, extremism and misguided opportunism.
At the same time, the forces of the right are consolidating, including the makers and beneficiaries of apartheid, under the auspices of a Moonshot Charter. We cannot let the enemies of progress retake the reins of power.
As we enter the era of coalition politics, our political culture must change with it. South Africans are sick and tired of the adversarial character of our politics that plays out in every day political discourse.
They want our leaders to check their egos at the door and come together to forge sensible solutions to South Africa’s complex problems.
Not every coalition is the City of Johannesburg. In fact, of the 82 coalitions currently in existence in South Africa, 50 are described as stable. It can be done with a commitment to cooperation, service delivery and humility.
Guest Speaker
It is in this spirit that we have invited the Leader of Rise Mzansi, Songezo Zibi, to attend our Conference as guest speaker today.
Some might question the wisdom of inviting a political opponent to our party conference.
But if we share the ideals of a fairer and better South Africa, then there should be no opponents in this fight, but rather partners in realisation of that vision.
Songezo, thank you for accepting our invitation to join us here today, and we welcome you with our warmest GOOD greetings.
Palestine and Foreign Policy
But what makes this election so important is not the politics, but the people who call this country home.
South Africa goes into 2024 staring at some of the most daunting challenges that it has never faced.
But we are not the only nation facing difficulties in an increasingly turbulent global environment.
Never in my lifetime has the ideal of world peace felt so threatened as it is now.
GOOD’s foreign policy is an extension of our domestic values. 3
In other words. GOOD promotes social justice, spatial justice, economic justice and environmental justice in an international system that is still skewed to the benefit of the colonial powers.
GOOD stands with the people of Palestine.
Never again will apartheid return to our shores, and never shall we tolerate apartheid on the shores of others.
We condemn the Israeli government’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, and remain committed to a two-state solution in line with the 1967 border agreement and associated UN resolutions.
GOOD’s Domestic Policy
Domestically, our challenges are daunting but not insurmountable.
The fullness of the potential of the democratic South Africa can still be realised with good governance, inclusive economic growth, unity and a strong and capable state.
Of course, we need to stand up to corruption and eradicate it in all forms. Corruption steals from our future; it steals from taxpayers. But the saddest thing is, it steals most from the poor.
The vast levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality demand an appropriate safety net of social security.
It is the moral imperative of government to come to the aid of the most vulnerable members of our society, who find hardship not through their own fault, but through the stain of our history and the inherent unfairness of market economies.
For this reason, GOOD has become the first party to firmly propose a Basic Income Grant of R999, meeting the food poverty line, coupled with clear funding solutions from the national budget. That’s social justice.
South Africa’s recovery is impossible without a solution to the devastating rolling blackouts that cripple any prospects of economic growth.
At the same time, the world faces an unprecedented crisis in the form of climate change, that threatens the sustainability of the human species.
The energy sector accounts for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions.
South Africa’s coal power plants are reaching retirement age, and are at odds with the urgent actions that need to be taken to keep our planet from warming to even higher levels than the ones which are already threatening human life on our planet.
Our solution to loadshedding must work in tandem with the global imperative of combatting climate change.
Coal must be phased out in the shortest time frame possible, and be replaced with vast quantities of renewable energy in partnership between the private and public sectors.
Workers in the coal industry must have their livelihoods protected. Western countries whose rapid industrialisation caused the climate crisis must fund the just transition to a green economy in the developing world. That’s environmental justice.
Members, human dignity starts with a safe space to call home.
GOOD has always been at the forefront of realising the constitutional right to housing.
Indeed, one of the primary motivations for our formation was the City of Cape Town’s failure to use its wealthy financial coffers to house the homelessness and overturn the injustice of apartheid spatial planning that sees people of colour confined to urban peripheries, far from decent housing and economic opportunities.
Rapid urbanisation accelerates the demand for housing and heaps pressure onto infrastructure systems in South African cities that were designed only to support a white minority.
GOOD says public land must be used for public good.
GOOD says that affordable housing for everyone can be achieved with the political will of a caring government.
GOOD says that the scar of apartheid spatial planning can be removed by providing affordable housing in well-located areas, as well as a functional public transport system and taking jobs and infrastructure to the people in rural areas and urban peripheries.
The Demarcation Board must rethink the arbitrary municipal borders that confine some local municipalities to zero prospect of self-sustainability with no link to large-scale economic activities. That’s spatial justice.
The levels of income inequality in this country is immoral and cannot be sustained.
GOOD remains of the view that proper restitution for apartheid has not yet occurred, and that the profiteers of apartheid must pay for the social development of the nation. That’s economic justice.
GOOD’s Impact on South Africa
My fellow Members, I’m proud to report that in just five years of existence, GOOD has changed the lives of millions of South Africans for the better.
Through our representation in all three spheres of government, we have brought a refreshing and compassionate approach to public representation.
We have changed the attitudes of city governments and forced them to implement our policies on issues like housing and public transport.
We have brought social democracy back into the national dialogue and led the fight for enhanced social security.
And I am proud, and we should all be proud, that we have disrupted the boys-club of South African politics and remain the only political party in the National Assembly with a female leader.
Some people have questioned by decision to take up a position in Cabinet. Let me be clear again: GOOD is no bedfellow of the ANC.
Every single South African Cabinet since 1994 has included at least one member from an opposition party.
Friends, it is easy to shout from the opposition benches. But governing is difficult. Policies and ideas are of little value unless they can be implemented in government to make lives better for the people who call South Africa home.
When the call came from the President, I did not think of politics. I did what I have done for more than 50 years, and answered the call to serve my country.
Through this position, the founding values of GOOD have been implemented to improve the lives of South Africans and return land to the people from whom it was stolen during apartheid.
In my time as Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, we released more than 31 000 hectares of land to the victims of apartheid dispossession, for the purposes of restitution.
We released 2 560 hectares to the Housing Development Agency, to build homes for the same victims. We released more than 25 000 hectares of agricultural land for the Redistribution Programme. For the first time, we exceeded the targets for land restitution.
We handed over title deeds to 23 families in the Chris Hani district who were forcefully removed during apartheid, and 30 black farmers in the Tafelkop Farmers’ Association in Limpopo. Trust me, the list goes on and on and on and on.
Now we are cleaning up Tourism after the mess left by that last Minister. We have completely revitalised good governance and business confidence in this critical job-absorbing sector.
Just in the last six months, we have saved South Africa a billion rand, by scrapped the ill-thought Tottenham Hotspur sponsorship. We have launched a 1.2 billion Tourism Equity Fund mainly to support existing SMMEs, who suffered dearly during the Covid-19 pandemic. A portion of the Funds will also be used to support and incubate promising startups in the industry.
I have dissolved the underperforming board of South African Tourism, and replaced it with a reputable and competent team to move forward with. And, I have employed the services of the Special Investigating Unit (“SIU) to investigate past irregularities.
After three years of dithering, the Tourism Masterplan has been adopted.
With our partnerships that we have with the private sector, it is no surprise that, in the first half of 2023, tourism arrivals grew 78,2 compared to 2022 numbers – 1.7 million more arrivals than during the same period last year.
Internal Matters
I am proud of what this young and energetic movement has achieved in the infant years of its growth. But, like in any organisation, there are still some who seek to destroy it from within.
We know who they are. We know that they are here only for their own self-interest and they do not share our values and vision for social democracy.
They have come to the wrong place.
GOOD’s Constitution defines the rules that we must all abide by, and when disciplinary action is taken, it is taken only in terms of that Constitution, and not by any individual.
I would like to thank my fellow members of the inaugural GOOD National Leadership Council for their unflinching dedication to the promotion of social justice, and the implementation of our Constitution without fear, favour or prejudice. Sometimes at great personal cost.
Conclusion
GOOD is different to other parties. We don’t come here to complain, we come here with solutions.
GOOD is not a movement for political entrepreneurs.
GOOD is a movement for change.
GOOD is a movement for social justice.
GOOD is a movement for good people, with a passion for the residents of South Africa and a heart for servant leadership.
Now, more than ever, South Africans are crying out for our political brand of fairness, kindness and love for our fellow human beings.
Let nobody stand against us in this fight for a better South Africa.
I thank you.