Consistent with his gimmicky style of leadership, the Leader of the Opposition, Bernard Grech, chose the day that the Church celebrates the Resurrection of Christ to tell us how he was going to resurrect the Nationalist Party and deliver for our country.
After a great build-up of hours of advertising and promotion, the seven-minute recording fell flat. It was full of buzzwords with zero concrete proposals. What really struck and worried me was the central theme of his message – wanting to take our country back. My immediate response to the opposition leader is that the Maltese want their country to move forward, not go back to the weary GonziPN era.
The Maltese want their country to advance further, to build on the economic and social progress achieved during the past eight years.
Are we a perfect country? No, we are not. Though, realistically, which country in the world is perfect? It is because we are not perfect that the Maltese citizens want, need, and deserve an engaged and credible government, able and ready to implement reforms wherever and whenever needed.
The opposition is evidently stuck in the past. The front bench of the opposition reflects the last Nationalist government’s tenure. People such as Jason Azzopardi, Beppe Fenech Adami, Mario de Marco, David Agius and Francis Zammit Dimech were key figures during this time. They were part of the government of the oil scandal, that continuously increased electricity bills, the government of the big scandal of the disposal of public lands such as in Fekruna and Lowenbrau cases, as highlighted in the auditor general’s reports.
Both the auditor general and the courts had called for political responsibility at the time. However, these same people are still seated on the PN’s front bench and preaching to Malta about what good governance is and what it entails.
Lest we forget, they are also the same political figures who resisted social progress by voting against the introduction of divorce and refusing to support the introduction of civil unions. And this is where the opposition leader wants to take our country – back to the days before Labour’s progress. It won’t be so difficult for him to achieve this goal as the prominent PN figures during this period, who witnessed and contributed to the fall of the party, are the same people drafting the party’s narrative today.
In Robert Abela, Malta has a focused prime minister with an ambitious plan and an understanding of what our country needs.
He is a prime minister true to his words, determined to keep on building on the last eight years of success, not even knocked off course by the global pandemic.
Over the past 15 months, the government led by Abela has safeguarded the health and the livelihoods of Maltese citizens. Millions of euros have been invested in healthcare and our response to the pandemic has been praised by the World Health Organisation for an exemplary approach which other countries ought to follow.
The opposition is driven by populism without the courage to make the necessary decisions- Ramona Attard
We are at the forefront of the vaccination programme, not just in Europe but across the world. Our approach has included investment of hundreds of millions of euros to promote work. As a result, circa 100,000 jobs were protected during these difficult times.
All these challenges, in health and the economy, did not hinder the government’s reform agenda.
The past few months have seen several good governance reforms, some of which had been overdue for more than a quarter of a century. It was this government that did what was needed to be done. It was this government that strengthened the institutions in an unprecedented way.
And this government remains committed to tackling the realities faced by citizens in all strata of our society, addressing their individual and specific needs.
A case in point is the rent reform for pre-1995 protected leases, where the government is offering peace of mind for families who, until today, were living in uncertainty, and, at the same time, offering fair compensation to property owners.
As part of our holistic commitment to ensure social justice, the government has just announced a White Paper to reform the laws regulating the use of cannabis, since no one should be treated as a criminal for smoking a joint.
The same willingness to reform and change is present in many other sectors such as infrastructure and the environment.
In each case, the difference between the Labour government and the PN opposition lies in the fact that we have a government which dares to decide and makes its decisions guided by core principles, values, research and consultation.
In contrast, the opposition is driven by populism, without the courage to make the necessary decisions.
We should believe Grech when he says he wants to take our country back. But the Maltese people want our country to keep moving forward.
And, under the leadership of the prime minister, Malta is, indeed, moving forward as he delivers progress that benefits the whole country as well as its people.
Ramona Attard, president, Labour Party