Editorial: Boats are not a measure of well-being

There is no doubt that the Labour government deserves credit. Malta has among the most vibrant economies in Europe, unemployment is negligible, and many families undoubtedly enjoy a standard of living that once seemed beyond reach. Robert Abela is entitled to point to those achievements.

But his interview with Times of Malta last weekend revealed something more significant than the government’s economic record: it laid bare the philosophy now defining Maltese politics.

Asked repeatedly about the problems that weigh down the country – from traffic to construction to population numbers – the prime minister returned to the same argument: people have more money in their pockets, they buy more cars and are going on more holidays thanks to a Labour government that made luxuries accessible to many.

“You can see this from the number of new boats that have been purchased. It’s massive,” he told Mark Laurence Zammit, with not even a hint of irony.

For Abela, congestion, overcrowding, overbuilding and other pressures that accompany this “prosperity” are simply the inevitable trade-offs of this “success”.

This is what catch-all managerial politics looks like.

Politics is no longer about shaping society or setting out a vision of the country we want to become. Despite all the fanfare about ‘Vision 2050’, the government’s real vision is to retain the status quo. It just wants to continue managing growth, sell Malta to the highest bidder and ensure consumers can continue spending.

In other words, we will keep measuring success in terms of GDP, employment, tourism numbers and so on. There was little discussion about the essence of education, nothing about climate change (despite its obvious impact on Malta) and barely a word about trying to stop environmental degradation. Or values.

When challenged about traffic, the answer was that despite providing alternative (free) services, the government had no intention of going for the stick approach.

When asked about the relentless construction, the response was that development rights could not be interfered with, and the sector remained essential to the economy.

When confronted about population growth, the ambition was not to rethink the country’s economic model but to slow the rate of increase while maintaining growth. In other words, the new Labour legislature is just about continuity.

And that comes despite Labour repeatedly speaking about the importance of well-being during the election campaign.

Which is why Abela’s comments about people buying boats struck so many as tone deaf. We thought well-being is meant to be about children having safe public spaces to play, not being stuck in traffic every single day, having access to nature without having to board a plane, and communities spared the relentless noise, overdevelopment and disorder that have become part of everyday life.

While many people are undeniably better off today, official statistics show almost 95,000 people in Malta still live below the poverty threshold, while almost one in five people remains at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Economic growth has not eliminated inequality – it merely simply made it easier to overlook.

Real social justice is about building fair structures that give people genuine opportunities, from decent education to affordable housing to strong public institutions.

Cars and boats are products of prosperity but should never become its definition. And this is the problem – in Malta we increasingly mistake consumption for progress.

Sunday’s interview offered little evidence that the government intends to challenge that model. On the contrary, it suggested that the objective is simply to manage it more efficiently.

That may be enough to win elections – recent history suggests many voters are content with such a bargain – but leadership requires preparing the country for what it will need tomorrow.