Last Tuesday, the Deputy Prime Minister wrote an article here about the White Paper he presented a few weeks earlier regarding the “placing of more responsibility and accountability on members of Parliament”.

Let’s hope that there will be less talk and more action- Helena Dalli

This brought to mind a piece I had written in May 2010 after the voting incident cooked up by the Government side about MP Justyne Caruana’s vote in Parliament. I wrote then that “since Minister Tonio Borg is one of the few men in the House with a sense of humour, I seriously thought that he was taking on the Speaker’s suggestion – of providing some humour – when he stood up to say that MP Justyne Caruana had voted no to the Labour Party’s motion on the power station extension”.

I, like many others on both sides of the House, was sure that Caruana had voted yes. And that is why I went on to write: “But when I looked up I realised that Borg was serious. Uncomfortably so but serious nonetheless. Had I not been present, I would not have believed that someone – let alone a Deputy Prime Minister and considered as one of the better characters in Parliament – could stoop this low”.

Not that it was essential but we did engage sound engineers to listen to a cleaned-up recording of what was said and Caruana could be clearly heard saying “yes”. The Speaker of the House could have done the same if in doubt.

But Borg continued insisting that Caruana had said “no” while we were sure that we heard “yes”. Evidently, the claim was fabricated in order to play down the fact that a Government MP had voted in favour of an opposition motion. The lie was instrumental to derail the parliamentary procedure.

Now, chickens are coming home to roost.

Nationalist MP Franco Debono referred to the incident recently and confirmed – not that any confirmation were necessary – that several government ministers lied about the Labour MP in saying that they heard her vote “no” when she actually said “yes”.

This is what Debono wrote: “They lied about an opposition MP because of a drunken man... is this just bad or evil?”

It was nothing but a ploy by the Leader of the House to obstruct the normal course of the voting process. At the time of the incident, Debono had not yet fallen out with his parliamentary colleagues and Prime Minister and was, thus, in the loop on what was going on and being said in the palace Government chambers.

It was the Leader of the House, Tonio Borg’s idea to declare that Caruana had been heard voting against the Opposition’s motion. And now Borg is speaking to us about ethics.

We fully agree that there should be a Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards, so much so that, in May 2010, Labour proposed such a structure. Not only that, Labour also suggested the repeal of the time-barring law so that action can be taken against MPs for any wrongdoing committed at any time.

So nothing new really to the idea of appointing a commissioner who supervises the behaviour of members of Parliament and Cabinet ministers.

Let’s hope that there will be less talk and more action on this matter and that the law will be retroactive. If so, one of the very first cases this commissioner ought to find on his or her desk will be that against Borg for lying against a parliamentary colleague.

The author is shadow minister for the public sector, government investments and gender equality.