Government plans to throw out a parliamentary motion urging it to consider establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the one set up in South Africa after the end of apartheid.

Community Affairs Minister Dale Butler told The Royal Gazette this week that his party had already decided to dismiss the idea put forward by Government backbencher Renee Webb.

"The Government has rejected that," he said. "We need something different to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It didn't work in South Africa. We realise something is needed. We haven't been able to discuss exactly what."

The motion went before the House of Assembly earlier this month, where it appeared to be worded as a bill i.e. a piece of draft legislation.

It read: "That this Honourable House establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission based on the South African model, to assist in healing the country of the vestiges of racism."

The Speaker of the House, Stanley Lowe, said only a Minister could suggest such a commission because it would mean expenditure from the public purse.

Ms Webb said she had intended it as a "take note" motion and that she would reword it so that it could be considered by the House.

She said: "It's to take note of the possibility of setting up one. I put it down because ... we in Bermuda have not addressed race in a very real way.

"We have a black government with no white representation at all and nobody thinks it's a problem. Clearly we have to talk about it."

She said the main object of such a commission should be to shift the economic balance of the Island.

"Whites have economic power in the main. We need to strike a balance so that the economy is reflecting the makeup of the country."

She said the South African commission had been effective at doing that. "In Bermuda the Government itself doesn't even have a policy that says we have to spend a certain amount of money in the black community.

"We are going to end up potentially having a situation where whites continue to benefit from the economy in the main."

But Mr. Butler said: "We do not feel as the Government that we need to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. What are whites going to say? We probably need something else where blacks who feel aggrieved can move forward."

He said the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality and the Human Rights Commission could both play a part in that.

"Blacks need to accept that it's over; that it's time to move on," he said. "What we really need is action where blacks take advantage of the opportunities that exist out there, rather than constantly repeating the past.

"Through our actions as a Government we are hoping we can do that."

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up to investigate human rights abuses that took place in that country under apartheid between 1960 and 1994, to give support and compensation to victims and, in some cases, grant amnesty to the perpetrators.