The Labour Party is ready to respond to the people’s call and lead them in their fight against the proposed water and electricity tariffs, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said yesterday.

Addressing supporters in Għaxaq, Dr Muscat said that the proposed tariffs were a big shock for the economy and society and he appealed to the government to back off since the new rates would break the economy, the country and its families.

The situation was leading to the creation of a new social coalition and “if the government doesn’t stop the Labour Party will respond to call being made by constituted bodies and the public to lead them in this matter”.

He also said that Labour would not stop at criticising but would also see what could be done.

This situation, Dr Muscat said, was clearly showing the two political faces of the government.

For in last year’s budget, the Prime Minister had said that if he increased tariffs he would be able to remove the surcharge but in doing so the government would be taking the Maltese for a ride. He had said that a strong leadership required another approach. The government, Dr Muscat said, was now behaving very differently.

The government’s proposals, he said, had led to an unprecedented situation whereby all constituted bodies were against the proposals.

Other governments facing the same crisis were seeing how to put their hands in their pockets and fork out the money but the Maltese government was itself creating a crisis.

It wanted money from the people to subsidise its failure at Enemalta.

The Labour leader also touched upon the investigations about the hacking of computer systems at MITTS saying that although the minister did not initially want to comment because of investigations, he later prejudiced these investigations saying the allegations were a pack of lies.

Dr Muscat said he was still waiting for the government’s reaction on the allegation that former Labour leader Alfred Sant, Labour MP George Vella and deputy leader Anġlu Farrugia were being spied upon. Situations which could undermine the country’s parliamentary democracy needed to be cleared.

The MPs who were spied upon should be informed instantly and told when their e-mail was hacked and what type of information was taken.

The meeting was also addressed by Labour MP Michael Falzon who spoke on immigration pointing out that the MLP was not against burden sharing but wanted to be sure that this would not be just on paper.

The party was not racist but the country’s circumstances needed to be addressed.