Newcastle : 14th June 2008
 

It is my privilege to close this meeting. I must say, it has been a wonderful engagement and I am sorry we have to stop.

When we put together this listening campaign, we expected to hear some useful inputs from people. But I'm sure we did not expect the quality of what we received tonight. It is clear to me from what I have heard that people are well informed about what is going on in this country. The people of South Africa are not ignorant. They are not stupid. They know the issues.

They know the problems and the challenges. They have solutions which they have clearly thought about. We want to thank you for your insights, and for sharing them with us. We will take all inputs made very seriously.

I have always believed in the importance of good communication, but I want to say that there is a difference in doing so because you have to and doing so because you want to.

I make this distinction because I want to reassure all of you that our listening is a serious business and that we are doing it because we genuinely believe that there is wisdom in what the ordinary man and woman has to say.

The party will be repeating this meeting around the country. On each occasion we will record the concerns we hear and the suggestions made to us.

Simultaneously, our small policy teams are engaging on these very issues in a little more detail, and they too, are capturing what is being said.

The leadership has decided that the party will be convening a policy conference later this year - I understand this is likely to be in Gauteng - where we will adopt a policy platform that gives expression to what is being said to us over the next four months or so. Our policy, in other words, will be the product not of party technocrats, but of these engagements with the people. It will be the product of this listening campaign.

So, on behalf of the leaders of the party here this afternoon, I want to thank each and every one of you once again for being here and for participating as you have done.

Let us all stand for the national anthem.