Robert Abela has dismissed rumours that he is planning a snap election, saying that Labour’s promise to slash income tax for middle classes builds on the party’s previous budgets.

Speaking at the close of a Labour Patrty general conference on Sunday, Abela said the upcoming budget, the third of this legislature, “will be better than the previous one and the one before that’.

“There is no election coming, I can assure you,” he said.

Abela has pledged to unveil the “biggest tax cut in history”  in October’s budget for 2025, saying tax bands will be widened to benefit middle classes.

That pledge sparked rumours in political circles that Labour was thinking of calling a snap election, just over halfway through its legislative term.

Refocus on high-value industries

Having poured cold water on those rumours, Abela said Labour Party members were right to expect more of their party, and pledged to deliver on those expectations.

Abela linked Maltese society’s expectations to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – a theoretical framework that ranks indviduals’ needs from the most basic and urgent to more aspirational ones.

“People know we did a lot of good. Now there are new challenges,” he said. “They want quality over quantiy, green spaces, cleaner air, road enforcement and housing affordability.

Labour's outgoing deputy leaders Chris Fearne and Daniel Micallef and outgoing president Ramona Attard were among those attending. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“We will not look away from these things, we will tackle these challenges.”

The Labour Party would be setting up internal party fora to discuss these challenges and how to address them, he said, as he urged delegates to “look ahead to the future, not to the past”.

Abela pledged to work to refocus Malta’s economy to deliver high-quality, jobs that guaranteed a good standard of living, were ethical and needed by society.

The priority was to find and develop industries which are not labour-intensive, have a minimal impact on national infrastructure and lead to a high value-added benefit to the economy, he said, citing engineering initiatives as an example. 

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has made similar calls, saying the country must find ways of generating "more with less".

Call for moderation in public discourse

Abela also reflected on the death of PN MP Karl Gouder, urging people to speak responsibly and “rise above personal attacks”.

“Such attacks contribute nothing to society,” Abela said, as he blamed an unnamed “small clique” of people he said was working to “advance hidden agendas and destroy good people.”

Opposition 'silent on private schools initiative'

Abela accused the Opposition of being the party of austerity, saying the PN would work to liberalise electricity distribution networks if elected into government.

“And that would mean one thing: higher bills,” he said. “They are the party that wants to leave the market to run itself. That is the easy path,” Abela warned.

He cited the government’s decision, announced last week, to subsidise private schools to help cushion the impact of rising educators’ salaries.

While Labour genuinely wanted to help Malta’s middle classes, the Opposition thought otherwise, he said.

Labour's two new deputy leaders Ian Borg (left) and Alex Agius Saliba (right) stand together with Robert and Lydia Abela. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

“Don’t you think that the Opposition backed up on this initiative,” he said of the private school investment. “It was total silence. They just sat and watched.”

Abela congratulated and thanked the party’s two new deputy leaders, Ian Borg and Alex Agius Saliba, as well as the party’s new president Alex Sciberras and all other party members elected during Saturday’s elections.