Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said this morning that he could not understand how Joseph Muscat had asked the Speaker, not the police, to investigate his claims of hacking which led to the publication of e-mails between him and an RTK journalist.

Speaking in a Radio 101 interview, Dr Gonzi said that more than running the PL, Dr Muscat appeared to want to run a national newsroom. 

This episode, Dr Gonzi said, showed a lack of ethics and was revealing in the way the PL acted.

If Dr Muscat really believed that the law was broken and hacking had taken place, then he should have gone to the police and not to the Speaker, who did not have the tools to investigate such matters. Indeed, this issue had nothing to do with Parliament and the role of the Speaker was to run the House and rule on the basis of the Standing Orders.

Dr Muscat was clearly playing a game. He knew that his e-mails were being circulated and he had tried to get his foot in before having to defend himself, Dr Gonzi said.

But Dr Muscat had acted in an obscene way. Not only had he sought to involve the Speaker instead of the police, but he had tried to blame the government and its IT agency, Mita, when neither Dr Muscat nor journalist Sabrina Agius had used the government's computer domain for their e-mail exchanges. 

This episode, Dr Gonzi said, showed two weights and two measures by the Labour Party. One could remember how in the past Labour had quoted from other people's e-mails.

And while it appeared okay for Dr Muscat to exchange some 90  e-mails with an RTK journalist, any journalist who dared to speak against or criticise the Labour Party came in for all sort of criticism and even threats. One only needed to see the Joe (Peppi) Azzopardi case.

Dr Gonzi observed that on September 18, the day when Libya's new leaders were visiting Malta, Dr Muscat was exchanging e-mails with Ms Agius. Was this how the leader of the opposition spent his days?

It was wrong if these e-mails were leaked in an illegal manner, Dr Gonzi said, but the content had national interest. Should the leader of the opposition involve himself in  the placement of journalists in the various media houses? Should he have effectively encouraged the journalist to betray her own employer? 

BUS SERVICE

Dr Gonzi noted that despite progress in the old bus service made by then ministers Jesmond Mugliett and Censu Galea, there had been no doubt that drastic change was needed, and this was promised in the PN electoral programme.

No one was complaining about the new buses - other then some complaints about their size. The new buses produced few emissions, they were clean and air-conditioned. There had also been substantial improvement in the manners of the drivers.

However the new routes network had failed with the interchanges proving to be unpopular.

Therefore, much of the old route network would be restored on November 6, while the successful aspects of the new system would be retained.

The government remained committed to give the people an efficient, modern bus service, and would do whatever was needed to achieve this aim, Dr Gonzi said, adding that this process of change had to be treated with 'humility' and the realisation that more needed to be done. 

Dr Gonzi never mentioned Transport Minister Austin Gatt or the warning by Nationalist MP Franco Debono that he would abstain on an opposition motion calling for the minister's resignation.

LIBYA

On Libya, Dr Gonzi said  he was saddened at the way Muammar Gaddafi was killed and he would have preferred to see Gaddafi go through a judicial process before an independent tribunal . “National reconciliation cannot start with an act of violence.”

Dr Gonzi spoke of a new beginning for Libya and said that Malta looked forward to the birth of a new democratic process. He said Malta must keep on playing its role to secure stability in the region.

Malta was on the side of the Libyan people and the government took some very bold decision in very difficult moments even at the cost of criticism by the Labour Party. “We always believed that justice would prevail,” Dr Gonzi said.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.