September 2025

HERITAGE DAY: THE POLITICS OF BELONGING

/ GOOD Statement / By

This year, as the government hosts Heritage Day celebrations under the theme “Reimagining our Heritage Institutions for a New Era,” we must ask who belongs in this new era? And who is being excluded?
Across the world, identity politics has taken a troubling turn, fear-mongering and extremist views have become politically profitable again. In the United States, the mainstreaming of racism in political discourse is no longer subtle. Just this week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance used the platform of slain right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to accuse “leftist” groups of undermining national unity. In the UK, far-right figures like Tommy Robinson now boast that labels such as “racist” and “Islamophobe” no longer carry the same power.

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TAXI VIOLENCE: DA INACTION FUELS ROUTE WARS

/ GOOD Speech / By

 The recent taxi violence, and this week’s decision to shut down taxi routes, is a direct failure of government, in particular the Western Cape and City of Cape Town, to address the systemic and outdated transport regulation regime.
A decade ago, the Ntsebeza Commission recommended that the Province and the City improve the regulation of taxi routes and permits, since poorly managed licensing and route disputes were the direct driver of the violence.
This has not happened.

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THE SAFETY PLAN HAS FAILED: YOU CANNOT ARREST AWAY INEQUALITY

/ GOOD Speech / By

 The Western Cape has been gripped by violent crime that tears through communities, destabilises families, overwhelms clinics, and threatens schools.
But crime does not fall from the sky.
Let’s begin with the roots.
The blood on our streets is not about “bad people making bad choices.”
It is apartheid’s spatial planning. Entire communities dumped on the margins. Overcrowded. Stripped of opportunity. Trapped in poverty.
And this government? They have not fixed it. They’ve made it worse.

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STATE INERTIA ENABLES MEDICAL VIGILANTISM, NOW SPREADING TO SCHOOL ADMISSIONS

/ GOOD Statement / By

Two weeks ago, social media was outraged by images of a woman bleeding in the street outside a clinic in Tshwane. She had been denied access to medical attention by vigilantes because she could not show them a South African ID. She cried for help but received none. Instead, people took photographs of her with their cellphones.

This week, media reported the death of one-year-old Praise Banda in Alexandra after medical vigilantes allegedly stopped his mother, Grace, from entering two clinics for help to stop his vomiting and upset stomach.
These are but the latest shocking outcomes of a campaign that has been conducted for the past several months, mostly in Gauteng, to deny immigrants from neighbouring countries medical treatment at South African taxpayers’ expense.

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 PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA SHOULD KNOW THAT “BETTER RUN” DA MUNICIPALITIES ARE ONLY BETTER RUN FOR SOME

/ GOOD Statement / By

Only the corrupt would disagree with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plea to ANC councillors to stop stealing, but to set DA-run municipalities in Cape Town and Stellenbosch as the benchmark for good governance spits in the faces of millions of poorer people whose quality of life is desperately low. Cape Town and Stellenbosch may obtain good audit results, but they are global benchmarks for inequality.

 PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA SHOULD KNOW THAT “BETTER RUN” DA MUNICIPALITIES ARE ONLY BETTER RUN FOR SOME Read More »

POLICING, ON ITS OWN, WILL NEVER STOP WESTERN CAPE GANGSTERISM

/ GOOD Speech / By

A recent surge in the number of gang-related crimes led to a flurry of pronouncements by top police brass this week, including an admission by the Acting Minister that the police had no coherent plan to stop it. What was strikingly absent was any discussion about addressing dysfunctional social environments; about the roles the Departments of Social Development, Education and Sport, the City of Cape Town and Western Cape Province should be playing to fix the fabric of communities.

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GOOD DEMANDS REMOVAL OF BARRIERS TO SRD GRANT ACCESS

/ GOOD Statement / By

The GOOD Party calls on the government to immediately remove all pre-qualification barriers to accessing the Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant. In a society plagued by staggering unemployment, stagnant wages, and deepening inequality, social assistance must be designed to reach people quickly, not to exclude them through bureaucratic red tape. The National Development Plan committed our government to ensuring that no South African lived below the lower bound poverty line by 2030. The lower bound poverty line was R1,109 per person, per month as of May 2024.

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CACHALIA IS RIGHT: WESTERN CAPE HAS NO COHERENT STRATEGY FOR GANG VIOLENCE

/ GOOD Statement / By

The Acting Minister of Police is right to be concerned. There is ‘No proper plan in Cape Town to deal with gang violence’.
More than a year since the Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town signed a Cooperation Agreement with SAPS, the promised coordination, intelligence-sharing, and joint response to crime remain largely on paper. The failure to implement even the most basic provisions of this agreement is emblematic of a broader truth that the Western Cape does not have a policing problem alone, it has a governance problem.

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WESTERN CAPE SAFETY PLAN: TIME TO TACKLE THE REAL CAUSES OF CRIME

/ GOOD Speech / By

The Western Cape Government has the mandate and the capacity to change the living conditions that are the root causes of violent crime. This government must use its powers, mandates and resources more effectively, instead of dabbling in policing and then complaining about how poor policing is. There are good people in every organization, but recent developments regarding SAPS have shown the level of dysfunction at the heart of policing in South Africa.

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WESTERN CAPE CHILDREN’S COMMISSIONER: OUR CHILDREN NEED A FIERCE PROTECTOR

/ GOOD Statement / By

The GOOD Party welcomes the appointment of Sarah Helena Roberts as the new Western Cape Commissioner for Children. As a member of the Standing Committee that interviewed candidates for this vital role, it was clear to me, and to many others, that Roberts possesses the competence, integrity, and skills required to serve the children of our province with distinction.
Her appointment comes at a time when the need for bold, independent advocacy for children could not be more urgent. Just this week, the police reported to the Provincial Legislature that 63 children were killed in the Western Cape between April and August this year, 22% of these deaths linked to gang violence.

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