The Prime Minister may have enjoyed being euphoric and optimistic when addressing the party faithful recently, but those on the receiving end of his politics are certainly less satisfied with their present situation. Years of mismanagement of the economy, false promises built on political spin, and deteriorating public services are the hallmarks of almost 20 years of Nationalist government.
The need for change is today more urgent than ever if we are to restore the electorate's hope of a prosperous future. A new Labour government will work on five issues which today are affecting people's life so negatively: inflation, excessive taxation, declining health services, insufficient investment and declining standards of education.
The most serious problem affecting our people's daily lives is the high cost of living that is eroding the quality of life of so many families. We need to control excessive government expenditure, which is being financed by taxpayers' money. Work which can easily be done by underemployed public sector workers should not be subcontracted because this is wasteful and demoralises the thousands of government employees who want to be given the tools and the training to do the job.
Just look at the shabby state in which our island is languishing at present. This is not only deteriorating the quality of life of our people but is seriously affecting our tourism industry. No wonder the Prime Minister completely ignored the state of our tourist industry when he recently reviewed his perceived economic successes in the Independence Day mass meeting.
Ordinary hard-working people have been hit by a double whammy by the Gonzi administration when combined with the ever-increasing inflation, they have been subjected to a tax regime that is earning the reputation of being one of the most onerous in the EU. We have the unenviable record of having one of the hardest-hitting tax systems in Europe.
A Labour government promises to stop this vicious cycle of increasing taxation that fuels higher inflation and which, in turn, makes us more uncompetitive. This can, and must, be done because politics is not just about meeting the Maastricht criteria, but about improving the quality of life of ordinary citizens who are increasingly disillusioned with the politics of spin, and are looking to the Labour Party to deliver the politics of substance.
The state of our national health services has never been so pathetic. One just needs to visit the outpatients department at St Luke's Hospital on any morning, or conduct a brief tour of the overcrowded wards in the same hospital. If one is less inclined to visit St Luke's, one can stay at home and analyse the statistics in relation to the waiting lists for serious medical treatment to realise how much we have fallen behind in the last few years.
The mismanagement of the Ministry of Health is destroying the sterling work being given by the medical and paramedical staff of our public health service.
It is increasingly clear that the ultimate aim of a Nationalist government is to limit free medical services, either directly or indirectly, my making the levels of free services in our public hospitals simply unacceptable, except for those who cannot afford to resort to private medical treatment. A Labour government will guarantee free medical services for all those who need it despite the daunting challenge of funding the upkeep of the new Mater Dei Hospital.
Another challenge facing a new Labour government is the attraction of new viable investment to create job opportunities for our young workers. And here we are not referring to mega property development projects disguised as IT investment.
We will, of course, welcome any new investment in the IT and communication industry, but this investment will have to be transparent, and if incentives have to be built in the offer to attract such companies to our shores we will inform the public upfront on what these incentives are so that they can evaluate the cost and benefits of having such investment. Once again, for Labour substance is more important than spin.
The declining levels of education are being camouflaged by the present administration with the hype surrounding the inauguration of refurbished physical facilities. This is clearly not enough. While the amount of money we spend on education is substantial we are not getting the results that should emanate from such investment.
We need to restore the pride of our hard-working teaching staff in a profession that is so vital for the economic well being our country. We need to ease the financial burdens that have hit our young families so badly in the last decade to enable them to put their children's education on the top of their list of priorities. We need to encourage research in our higher educational institutes so that our graduates obtain the right skills and mindsets which make them attractive to prospective investors looking at Malta to gain competitive advantage.
This is, in brief, the substance of Labour's policy for breaking the vicious circle in which we have been caught in the last several years of Nationalist administration. We need to move from empty rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims about how better off we all are, to rolling up our sleeves and undertake the hard work that needs to be done so that all of us, and not just the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, feel euphoric and optimistic about the future.
Dr Mangion is deputy leader (parliamentary affairs) of the Malta Labour Party.