Creating the truth

A sheet-long answer from the Prime Minister to a two-line parliamentary question last week revealed a good deal about how this government treats important issues. The idea that there is an independent reality, subject to independent verification has been totally abandoned. Instead a different sort of political epistemology has been embraced. Narratives that can be constructed have taken the place of truths that can be proven. The need to create the truth has become more important than truth itself. Thus appearance and reality have become identical. It is clear that superficiality counts for everything while government is all about being seen to get things done rather than about getting them done.

Let's take the afore-mentioned parliamentary question. It was about what is being done to step up the efficiency of the public service. Three fourths of the answer was on the so-called "better regulation initiative" and the rest was on audits which are supposedly carried out in departments which have "quality service charters". I asked what were the results of these audits, which is what really matters, but the Minister - replying in place of the Prime Minister who was not present - while acknowledging the importance and validity of my supplementary question, could not answer, as the public sector is the domain of the latter.

So, I had to be content with the page-long written answer full of rhetoric portraying the illusion that we have never enjoyed such an apparently active public service, that there have never been so many programmes, action and performance plans. The problem is that all the activities mentioned are but attractive initiatives distanced from many people's real-life experiences in relation to government efficiency.

This spin will not get us anywhere and a serious government's programme must be to strive to restore the administrative function of our public service and reduce the overriding presentational function it has today.

The ugly truths the government tries to ignore and hide - but are, nonetheless, there for all to see and touch - must be looked at. I asked a close friend of mine - born, and still living, in Sliema, in a PN bedrock area to boot, lest I be accused that I am blinded by my interest in people living in the south - how she and her Sliema acquaintances, in general, look at this administration's performance especially in terms of efficiency and accountability.

Her list was long: "After two decades of PN governments, this country still takes double the required time and money to achieve anything. Isn't it simply scandalous we still have brown sludge in the sea, in spite of all the expert consultants? Aren't some beaches appalling with all the sewage outflow? And isn't it shameful that a blind eye is turned to restaurateurs constantly putting their rubbish out on the streets at night, to be collected in the morning? Even parking bays are full of their rubbish. The odours are terrible while the insects and rats they attract continue to infest the neighbourhood. These people never seem to get booked while for us there's always someone on the prowl ready with a parking ticket, sometimes undeservedly. Are the law enforcers maybe more comfortable with us to help them reach their ticket quotas trouble-free in the strong-with-the-weak sense? Why is it that more than one new construction at a time is allowed on the same street no matter how short it is? What is being done about the quality of our air and water? How many are aware that we have one of the highest breast cancer and asthma rates in Europe?..." She went on and on, also pointing out that she was not mentioning issues such as the notorious power station tender since she was more concerned about immediate realities which touched her and others directly every day.

"These are but a few hard facts which the PN's army of market researchers, graphic artists, advertising copy writers and psephologists cannot erase.

"They are problems which the government could solve in no time if it were half as efficient as the Prime Minister tried to imply in his answer to the parliamentary question in discussion. Which brings me to my friend's outright reply when I asked about her views on the PN government: "Most of us agree that it has become the inane product of a slick publicity machine. We are nostalgic for intellectual integrity which has been driven out of politics. How is it, for instance, that ministers are always quick to respond with a sound bite without taking time to consider weighty questions? Problems need to be reasoned out and answers given in a timely thought-out way, but spin is all the time eclipsing the big picture."

This goes to show that it is not enough to gain power simply through clever positioning and strategic alliances. A major problem with this government is that it was dishonest about what it would do in office, and now it is failing big time. The government's constant concern is thus not to get Malta out of a mess, but to divert attention and to get itself out of one tight spot after another.

Labour must look truth in the face; its success depends mainly on the courage and rigour to do this. This, wrapped in good presentation should be the way ahead: a combination of form and substance, with emphasis on the latter. This country doesn't need another Nationalist Party.

Dr Dalli is Labour shadow minister for the public sector and government investments