Labour's plans for a new beginning

The Malta Labour Party will be holding an extraordinary general conference between Thursday and Saturday. It is asking its delegates to discuss and approve four new policy documents dealing with public health, education, industry and Gozo. The closing session will be held in Gozo.

The three-day conference is in continuation of a process started in June of last year when an extraordinary general conference approved a policy document on the economic revival of the Maltese islands. The MLP's statutory annual general conference held last January approved the party's plans for a renewal of the tourism industry and an environmental plan for Malta and Gozo.

Labour's policy documents involved five months of discussions and consultations with experts and stakeholders in the sectors concerned. More than 1,600 persons participated in these meetings. These included meetings with various constituted bodies, trade unions, the trade and commercial sector, Church and religious organisations, as well as sports and cultural associations both in Malta and Gozo.

The four policy documents that Labour delegates will be discussing this week are plans aimed to redress the failures of the Nationalist government in the respective sectors.

Concerned by the number of job losses and the constantly raising unemployment rate, Labour's Action Plan For Industrial Renewal proposes the setting up of a committee that includes the participation of the Prime Minister and the minister responsible for the sector. It will meet at least once a month in order to address problems faced by local industry and discuss proposals put forward by the stakeholders to enhance their competitive edge.

The Labour document also proposes the setting up of a task force that includes the participation of the private sector and trade unions to identify those factors that are causing the competitive loss of our industry because of taxes and government-induced higher costs. Corrective measures to reduce these burdens will be announce within six months.

Labour also pledges to strengthen and rationalise Malta Enterprise so that it will be in a better position to promote new investment and focus on measures of assistance to local industry.

Among the concrete proposals contained in Labour's policy document on public health, we have declared that a Labour government will have Mater Dei functioning as a general hospital. A task force shall be set up to evaluate, within three months, all the work practices introduced in the new hospital and to revise if necessary.

We have promised that a part of St Luke's Hospital shall be refurbished and converted into a residence for disabled persons who have no one to care for them.

Conscious of the hardships caused by long waiting lists for appointments in the out-patients department and operations in St Luke's, Labour's document on public health speaks about measures to cut the waiting list for operations by 15 per cent and for appointments in the out-patients department to a wait of not more than one month. A new Labour administration will also give free cholesterol-lowering medicines to persons aged over 75.

Successive past Labour governments have put education on top of their priorities. A new Labour government will continue on those lines. Seriously concerned by the fact that the present state of public education fails miserably the requirements of the Lisbon Strategy, Labour's document on education is pledging an expenditure on each student in public education to equal that spent by private and Church schools.

The document highlights the need for a strong collective effort by all those involved in public education so that the National Minimum Curriculum is implemented in its entirety.

Concerned also by the alarming levels of illiteracy and innumeracy among primary school leavers, Labour is proposing the introduction of a reception class, between kindergarten and the first year of primary school, in order to give young students a stronger beginning that will help them throughout their scholastic life.

Apart from proposals to update syllabi in primary and secondary schools, we are reviewing the system of access to textbooks by students. A Labour government will allow students to keep the textbooks they are given each year.

We are committed to reduce the class population to 25 students and to ensure that no primary school shall have more than 400 students.

Our policy document on education also provides for a Lm1 million fund to assist students who want to continue with post-graduate studies in any one of the 25 EU member states. We are committing ourselves to take all measures so that we will have a 15 per cent increase in the number of students graduating in mathematics, the sciences and technology.

We are closing our extraordinary general conference in Gozo with a specific purpose. One of our policy documents covers a development plan for Gozo as a region. The main objective of this document is to create more job opportunities for Gozitans in Gozo in the sectors of tourism, crafts and manufacture and agriculture and fishing.

Basing our plans on the principle that Gozo needs a regional identity, Labour's proposals for Gozo include the setting up of a Regional Council for Gozo whose main objective shall be the planning and implementation of a development plan for Gozo's specific needs. This council shall be represented on national boards and also on the Maltese Council for Economic and Social Development (MCESD).

The Ministry for Gozo shall function as the executive branch of the Regional Council and will be responsible for the implementation of the economic and social development plan.

We saw the need of a fiscal and financial statute to compensate Gozo for its permanent disadvantage. This statute provides for financial incentives to small enterprises in the tourism, crafts and manufacture, information technology and the processing of agriculture and fisheries products. It also envisages incentives for married and engaged couples as well as single parents towards the purchase of their first house.

Maltese society is crying out for a change and a new beginning. The Maltese and Gozitans are sick and tired of successive Nationalist governments that failed to deliver promises pledged in their electoral manifestos and failed to meet given targets in practically all the vital sectors of our economy, particularly the tourist sector.

The Maltese and Gozitans have had enough of the arrogance and incompetence of certain Nationalist Cabinet ministers who, notwithstanding their blatant shortcomings, remain glued to their ministerial seats. Maltese taxpayers cannot accept any more reckless squandering of public funds while they are being taxed to the bone to finance a profligate administration. The MLP, always in touch with reality and the aspirations of the Maltese, has listened and responded to these cries. It embarked upon an intense exercise to draw up policy updates on the most vital sectors of Maltese social and economic life. Supported by these plans, the MLP has its credentials in order to present itself as an alternative government that is determined to offer a new beginning for a better quality of life for all citizens of Malta and Gozo.

Mr Micallef is the MLP's general secretary.