The Nationalist Party’s new shadow cabinet has obviously attracted attention for what it says about who’s up, who’s down, who’s in, who’s out. But the most important issue concerns the extent to which these movements show that Labour is still playing with the PN’s head.
Yes, it is important to know that up go Adrian Delia, Joe Giglio, Jerome Caruana Cilia, Ivan J. Bartolo and Mark Anthony Sammut – all with major portfolios. But it’s more significant that out go the only three former ministers still in parliament — Mario De Marco, Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and Chris Said. They’re the only opposition MPs with no area to shadow.
What’s significant is not that they were left out. No one has a lock on a shadow cabinet place. What’s wrong is the justification that, apparently, is given: they were cabinet ministers in Lawrence Gonzi’s second government. (Two of them barely served for a couple of years each in cabinet.)
The Gonzi government had its shortcomings, some major. But the idea that it was toxic is Labour propaganda, artfully promoted. It has managed to rewrite history and tarnish an economic record that other European governments would be proud of.
The last PN government saw us through the Great Recession comparatively unscathed. The Central Bank’s own studies show that economic recovery began around 2011, as measured in new businesses and savings available for investment. There was a lot to make you fed up to the gills: cock-up, maladministration, scandals and displays of arrogance. But, in retrospect, all were smaller in scale – as measured in euro amounts, number of scandals and incidents and seniority and number of the personalities involved – than what Labour has delivered since 2013.
You’ve surrendered to Labour spin if you remove three experienced politicians from the shadow cabinet on the grounds of their association with Gonzi. All you do is reinforce the very narrative you should be countering.
Not having government experience in his ranks will hurt Bernard Grech more than it helps him. Labour knows that well. Labour’s influence can also be seen in how certain portfolios have been constructed. Giglio gets to shadow both the police and the army, since Labour, contrary to the practice of every liberal democracy, has combined both under the same minister since 2013.
PN governments, like all their European counterparts, always separated them. You never want just one person in charge of all the forces of coercion.
With two portfolios, the PN is following not only Labour but also its own practice in government. And, yet, this is where a break with the past is truly needed.
Time will tell if this allocation of portfolios will work in practice- Ranier Fsadni
Maritime affairs are understood narrowly as a single sector – essentially, shipping. Yet, it’s been clear for years that the sea has great potential for the digital economy, research and innovation, energy and action against climate change. Because of the interrelated challenges of governance that maritime and marine affairs raise, the PN should seriously consider having one shadow minister embracing all of them in a single vision.
And then there’s transport, where Labour today, like PN governments before it, pays lip service to mobility (which includes pedestrians and cyclists) but where policies clearly favour cars. The bias for cars is still evident in how Delia’s portfolio is described in the press report carried by Net News. Mobility is part of his title but the description of his responsibilities leaves it out, as though there’s a blind spot.
What about the rest of the portfolios? Some are traditional – education, social policy, health, finance and so on. Others are remarkable for the disparate topics they combine.
Charles Azzopardi gets both ‘traditional pastimes’ and ‘the fight against the rise in the cost of living’. Claudette Buttigieg gets civil liberties and ‘the fight against diabetes’. Ivan Castillo gets the maritime sector and employment.
It’s also remarkable how some responsibilities are separated. There’s one shadow for employment and another for self-employment.
Inclusivity is kept separate from equality when the only reason for doing this lies in the practice of Robert Abela’s two governments, more to do with personalities than with the logic of the policies needed.
Civil liberties are not part of Graziella Attard Previ’s portfolio, even though she’s said to be responsible for human rights. What are civil liberties if not the freedoms guaranteed by the European charter?
Time will tell if this allocation of portfolios will work in practice. Although the composition of many portfolios are not logical in policy terms, in at least some cases they do play to the strengths of particular MPs.
Take Buttigieg. Civil liberties and diabetes? She has previously served as a credible spokesperson for the former. As for diabetes, she has a background in health policy administration and a family member who depends on government services.
She knows better than most politicians, and can articulate better than most diabetics, that diabetes is not a narrowly medical condition: how it’s experienced depends a great deal on social conditions and holistic policies.
Therefore, what might appear to be fragmented portfolios could end up working better if they draw more focused, socially informed attention from the opposition.
As for the overlapping responsibilities, if MPs are ready to work in tandem, those too might provide important backup for an overstretched opposition keeping track of a well-resourced government.
But the only way that dispersed approach will work will be if the opposition is ready to work in concert. It will need to put the work into coordinating policy committees so that everyone understands the larger holistic context and can contribute to the policy framework.
And, as it happens, it’s only by visibly working together in this way that they can convince voters they’re no longer the divided party Labour paints them out to be.