National Day reflections

I reside in Australia and have been trying to campaign to change the way that Australia observes its national day. Instead of it just being a celebration of Australia, I’m proposing that the morning be set aside for reflection and discussion of the mistakes that Australia has made over the years, and the afternoon a celebration of the positive things that Australia has done as a country.

I believe that this could be a model for how all countries observe their national days.

All countries have made mistakes as well as had successes. This would be a more nuanced way of observing the national day and would be a form of insurance against repeating past mistakes.

With Malta having just celebrated Independence Day, I invite the Maltese people to consider this idea for how this day is observed.

Adrian Dow – Sydney, Australia

Walk the talk

Roberta Metsola has, once again, been in the news but for the wrong reason.

Roberta Metsola and her husband, Ukko on their way to vote in the European Parliament elections last June. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Just one week after having appointed her own brother-in-law, Matthew Tabone, as head of her cabinet – a crystal-clear case of nepotism of the first order, which she had already tried to do on her first appointment as president but had then turned tail after the flak she had received – the influential Brussels journal Politico, accused Metsola of double standards, when failing to declare her conflict of interest once her husband, Ukko Metsola, vice-president of the Royal Caribbean Group, one of the world’s leading cruise-liner companies, is a registered lobbyist with the European Union. And one of the most influential lobbyists, to boot.

Although the committee which drafted the code of ethics within the guidelines of her office, which binds all top European parliament officials, somehow had mysteriously left a loophole that allows Metsola to not declare any conflict of interest, the general reaction in Brussels was that she should still have declared a conflict of interest since, as president of the European Parliament, she should be leading by example. And not because she is forced to by any code of ethics.

I can now understand better why Metsola had declined to take part in the debates during the June 8 election campaign.

The two most famous sayings come to mind. First: “To walk the talk.” Followed by George Orwell’s famous, slightly amended by me, “All animals are equal but one is more equal than others”.

Eddy Privitera – Naxxar