This government drew up what you describe as temporary boundaries back in 1988. It has taken the lifetime of five administrations, or 18 years, to make any changes. Why?

In 1988, the government decided to control the amount of land available for development, which was a courageous decision since the owners of land that was suddenly excluded from the development zone didn't exactly applaud the action. But it was a temporary provision.

Temporary doesn't normally last 18 years.

The government set up the Planning Authority in 1992 and the work to draft the local plans - through which the boundaries would be detailed - started in 1993... We waited for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (Mepa) to draw up those local plans and intervened after it completed the last one.

Don't you think that 15 years is an unacceptable amount of time?

I would love to have them finished off earlier. But we intervened at the end of the process because a number of different yardsticks were used. If you see the plans, you'll understand what I'm saying and therefore we decided to give Mepa direct direction on what should be included or what should not.

Because you don't trust Mepa.

No. It's not that I don't trust Mepa but due to the fact that there should be a common yardstick and not one yardstick for one local plan and another yardstick for another local plan.

So Mepa is incompetent.

No. You have to understand that the local plans were drawn up by different planning teams within the forward planning unit of Mepa. It's not a question of incompetence but of different views. All plans went to the board and... they accepted them. In my government's opinion there should be a common yardstick.

What's the point in having Mepa at all if it cannot be entrusted to carry out an exercise like this which is one of the reasons why it was set up?

Of course we should have Mepa. A local plan does not just define what area is in and what isn't. It goes into all the activities that happen in a particular zone... we intervened at the last minute after Mepa issued the last local plan and said: "Listen, we need to have proper guidelines".

So their work done over a period of many years was basically wasted because you decided to...

No, not at all. Let's get one thing clear. Forty-two per cent of the land included in the rationalisation exercise was already indicated by Mepa in its local plan exercises...

If Mepa did such a good job there was no need for you to intervene.

Does anyone realise that notwithstanding this addition, we will still have about five per cent less land for development than we had in 1987?

You have to take the yardstick from 1988, not 1987, because the last regulations were issued then.

No. They were temporary!

So temporary that they lasted 18 years.

It's true that it took 18 years, but it is one exercise... it was clearly established by Parliament this was temporary and that we still had to delineate the boundaries in a proper manner.

What gives the Cabinet, which has no expertise in this area, the moral authority - and particularly the professional authority - to overrule Mepa which employees experts in this area?

We didn't identify the land. What we did is lay down criteria.

Criteria which are extremely generic and open to interpretation.

I don't agree. They are so restrictive that there are seven pages of them.

Who's going to interpret these criteria, you?

Mepa.

And then what's the government going to do if it doesn't like the way Mepa's interpreted them, overrule them again?

There is a very clear process defined in our legislation that this government implemented in 2001 detailing what the government can actually do. If it doesn't agree with Mepa, it has to say so publicly and in writing. And we will follow that...

In effect overruling them.

We are in duty bound to give the general policy. Isn't that why governments are elected?

It just doesn't seem to make much sense to set up a supposedly independent body like Mepa to take decisions on these matters and then have a political body like the Cabinet overruling them.

In this country we have gone from one extreme to another. We had one extreme where politicians would take decisions on everything - including every permit - and then we moved to a system where the government, which is elected by the people, has virtually no say on an authority it sets up itself. The government is there to provide a framework for the authorities to take decisions on. And that's how things should be done...

Why didn't it do that 10 years ago?

If we'd intervened before, we would have been accused of interfering. We waited for the process to finish... we issued criteria to ensure there would be a common yardstick because at the end of the day, when it comes to an election, we're the ones that have to explain the grounds on which a development decision was taken.

I always maintained that the adjustment has to take place because otherwise our environment would be in greater danger. Because if you leave loopholes in the boundaries, what guarantee is there that a government won't come along tomorrow and make much bigger changes than the ones being proposed by this government...? We know that we will not be popular with 90 per cent of those who apply to be in it...

...but the other 10 per cent might be a very important 10 per cent.

All that concerns me is whether the land complies with the criteria. I am not interested in who owns it. All we've issued are criteria that will be interpreted by Mepa.

But it's how those criteria will be interpreted that will be the crux of the matter and that has the potential to give rise to more injustices.

Yes, but...

...so that doesn't worry you.

Name cases. But don't argue in this generic manner. Tell me what cases can cause these problems and we'll see how to address them. It's unfair to make a categorical statement without mentioning specific cases. I would like to know if there's a case where, after Mepa interprets the criteria, there is a possibility of injustice. I have already declared that I don't agree with how Mepa has interpreted those criteria, in St Julians for example...

So what's going to happen when there are injustices when it comes to interpretation?

Mepa is currently looking at the submissions. If someone says the criteria have not been interpreted correctly, there will be a discussion. Obviously, whatever is decided by the board will be seen by the Cabinet. If Cabinet doesn't agree, it will tell Mepa. If it agrees, we will go on to the next stage.

So there will be political interference.

What do you mean political interference?

Cabinet's intervention amounts to political interference.

The government has a right to give direction to its authorities.

Some people would interpret direction as laying down the law.

There are lots of people who ask if the authorities are a government themselves.

The Malta Chamber of Planners said: "The process whereby the government itself sets the criteria and proposed sites and then placed the onus on Mepa to identify other sites fitting with the criteria already set, was certainly not the way planning law was conceived". Do you disagree with them?

I disagree for one simple reason; because the legislation stipulates how the process should be carried out, and we had introduced the process. Instead of being in a situation where the government twists Mepa board members' arm to take a certain decision, we have had the courage to say they can take the decision they see fit and where the government disagrees it makes its objections known in writing in a public document...

...so what the government says goes...

We have given Mepa board members the freedom to decide on policy issues and then if the government disagrees it won't pull strings but publicly declare where it disagrees. That's democracy. Because we must remember that the Mepa board members are not elected. The government is accountable.

So, they're not trusted.

We would not put them there in the first place if we didn't trust them. The government appoints them...

...and then won't listen to them.

Don't put words into my mouth. I have outlined the legal process clearly... and this is a process that takes place in other countries... I would like to remind the Chamber of Planners that their members formed part of a committee that formulated the revision to the law in 2001 that put forward this process.

So why are they objecting?

I don't know. I would also like to ask why the Chamber of Architects are objecting... I have a document by the Building Industry Consultative Council, which includes a representative from the chamber, that shows that they wanted more land allocated in the south than is contained in the rationalisation... the chamber representative did not object, so I would like it to explain why it's objecting now.

You said before that you are the one that has to answer to your electorate when some perceived injustice has happened. So naturally you are politically influenced.

Let me ask you: what's an elected government supposed to do?

Act in the national interest.

Yes, and that's exactly what we're doing.

You're acting in individuals' interests.

No. The biggest danger to this country would be for the government not to decide and for another government to come up and increase the development from 2.4 per cent to, say, 4.2.

That's hypothetical.

Isn't it better to close the loopholes than allow speculation to continue on the undefined land?

Who's to guarantee that the next government, if it's a Labour government, won't make more changes in any case?

These changes are binding for 10 years.

But if they pass a resolution through Parliament, they can achieve the same...

In that case, they will have to go to the trouble of explaining why they're doing it. We have said let's settle this issue once and for all, even though we know we're not going to be popular whether with the people who want their land to be included or with the people who don't think we should develop any more land. But we are taking these decisions in the national interest and for the common good.

According to you. Because everyone seems to be opposing it, whether it's the Church environment commission, whether it's a new lobby group made up of ordinary people, the Chamber of Architects, the Chamber of Planners, the opposition, the environmentalists. They are all opposing it. So they don't know what the national interest is and you do.

There are different interests in these groups that you mentioned. I understand the interests of the environmentalists, so much so that after I announced it I met with them to explain the process. Second, they don't all have the same interests as the environmentalists. And there are different interests on behalf of the Labour Party. We also know that they were going round to families and promising them that their land would be included when they get elected... We wanted to close the matter.

The facts are saying that without changing the development boundaries, Malta will already have twice as many units as it would possibly need till 2020. It is therefore illogical to extend the development boundaries.

We are so aware of the volume consideration that we wrote it ourselves in the first page of the criteria document. That's why the extension we're proposing is so limited and if we had given in to pressure it would have been much bigger.

But when you have figures saying you are already going to have twice as many dwellings than you need, you don't have to extend the boundaries.

I repeat: it was agreed long ago that these were temporary boundaries that needed to be settled. On the social side we are including land the Church sold to couples which was left out of the zones in 1988 as long as the land isn't ecologically sensitive. Bishop Emeritus Nikol Cauchi spoke on this and applauded the government for it. Even the opposition agrees that they should be settled. In fact, the Labour leader said they could have been settled on a case by case basis years ago...

Isn't it better if each individual case is decided on its merits?

I will not be interested in who the land belongs to, but whether it is in line with the criteria. When the Opposition Leader asks for the names, he should know two things...

...are you going to give them to him...

...first, the names of who made the submissions will come out in the local plans. He should know that. Second, you don't have to know who they belong to when you're taking a decision over whether land should be included or not. We are only interested in whether it is in line with the criteria. Now, whether it belongs to Cikku, Mrs Bates or Mrs Smith, we're not interested... This is where we are different to the others... we don't allocate land on the basis of who it belongs to.

But the fact that these broad criteria can be interpreted will make it possible to do just that.

We are not interested in who it belongs to.

It is easy to say that.

What do you mean? Look at the requests that have been made and see if they match the criteria...

Everyone's clear on the theory, but it's the practice that's the worry.

That's why we have issued criteria, not case by case as the Opposition Leader suggests.

You still haven't answered why Malta needs more property when there are so many vacant units?

We know we have vacant properties, but it is in the public interest that the boundaries that are in the temporary zones are settled for good because otherwise speculation will continue. And it is also in the interests of the environment.

You are in a process of consultation about this. People disagreed with you and still you press ahead with it.

Yes, of course we are pressing ahead with it.

So there's no consultation at all in actual fact.

The consultation exercise is on the land that was earmarked for development according to the criteria. We didn't make it open for discussion whether the process should take place or not. Parliament already agreed in 1988 that those boundaries were temporary and it bound future governments to settle them at some point in the future. That's what we're doing...

That still leaves you with many more units than you need and in the process the government won't tackle the issue of rent reform.

In 1995, the government made changes to the rent law. The opposition voted against and to this day hasn't declared whether it's in favour or against.

I'm asking you what your government is doing.

We have liberalised new rent contracts but the impact on the rental market has been next to nothing for one simple reason: because the owners of vacant property are still afraid that the rent law will change if there's a change in government because the Labour Party voted against it and today has still not declared itself in favour of it.

But rent reform is the right thing to do; you should do it irrespective.

That's what we did in 1995.

Yes, but that doesn't cover a lot of properties.

But what I'm telling you is that it's not only what the government decides that's important - the government decided in 1995...

But it didn't go far enough.

Of course it didn't go far enough. But this simply shows that even what we did in 1995 had little effect because of the Labour Party's reaction.

Isn't suing the Opposition Leader and making big complaints about someone holding up a placard at a protest politically infantile when you're a public figure?

I don't think so. First, I don't have any doubt that the Prime Minister didn't take the position he did because I was compared with (the late former Labour minister) Lorry Sant but because it is unjust for the process we are undertaking now compared with what used to happen before 1987. You can have as many opinions as you want against what we are proposing... but you can't equate whatever is wrong with it with the wrongdoings of that time...

I think that someone who compares me to Lorry Sant is exaggerating. I am not perfect. But the comment on that placard certainly wasn't balanced.