Quick fire questions are seldom very productive. Most of the time it’s unwise to put on the straightjacket of yes/no answers, especially as far as politics is concerned.

Come 2018 we should just have a longish round of multiple-choice questions and get it over with

I raised an eyebrow on Tuesday when Herman Grech told Joseph Muscat and Lawrence Gonzi he would be asking a series of this type of question. The ‘Big Debate’ had up to that point worked beautifully, why was he about to dumb it down?

As it turned out, I was wrong. Let’s leave aside the questions which produced identical (or so) answers. There isn’t much to say about those except that great minds think alike. They dither alike too, particularly on Armier.

The first useful moment came when Grech asked Muscat and Gonzi whether or not they would be prepared to hold a referendum on spring hunting. Muscat’s answer was a plain “No”, Gonzi’s a “Yes, if need be”. Within minutes, hunters were up in arms and two of their associations issued a press release saying that the PN wanted to abolish hunting.

I can just about see why they took it so badly. Whatever one’s thoughts about the matter, spring is what really gets hunters’ pulses racing. Ask any hunter and they would very happily part with a week’s salary for a day in the field in spring. I’m not a hunter myself but I understand the feeling. It’s all about the experience of the countryside, the plumage of imbiddlin (‘fresh-feathered’) birds in the spring, folk memories of streams of turtle doves, and so on.

Still, I think their fretting was quite unwarranted, for two reasons. First, it’s unlikely that there will ever be a national referendum over such a minor (for most people) issue. Hunters would vote for spring hunting, bird protection campaigners would vote to abolish it, and the rest of us – about 80 per cent of the population – would either not bother at all or end up voting on something they didn’t really understand. It would be a bit like holding a referendum on stamp collecting, or kite surfing.

The scenario would be plausible if we lived in Switzerland, where a long tradition of direct democracy means a referendum every few months on issues that range from aircraft noise to complementary medicine. (The most famous was probably that held in 1986 on whether to abolish the army altogether.)

But we don’t live in Switzerland and we don’t make watches and chocolate and referendums here are about big issues that concern most of the population. Spring hunting is really a technical matter of whether or not to apply a derogation rather than one for a national referendum.

Even so, it was the Prime Minister who came up with the wiser answer. The part of the question that was about spring hunting was incidental. There was another, much more vital, facet. The laws of Malta (the Referenda Act to be precise) establish that the Government must call a referendum if 10 per cent or more of the electorate ask for one, on any issue they deem fit. That includes stamp collecting, kite surfing, spring hunting, and pretty much everything else.

Grech did not ask Muscat’s and Gonzi’s opinions on spring hunting. He asked if they would be prepared to hold a referendum. The answer to that must be in the affirmative, no strings attached. That or the laws of Malta are an ass.

The second relevant question was about migration. Did Muscat and Gonzi agree with the ‘push-back’ policy of intercepting migrants at sea and sending them back to Libya? The Prime Minister said he didn’t, Muscat that he did – provided Libya was a safe and secure place.

Again, Gonzi’s answer trumps Muscat’s hands down. Push-back is a non-starter. Following Tuesday’s debate, seven migration-linked NGOs issued a press release that seemed to want to say as much. Only they chose to wear their kid gloves, probably to avoid sounding partisan (go figure – as if engaging with party policies is polluting), so all we got was circuitous diplomatic language.

Push-back masquerades as some kind of simple and effective solution but is, in fact, a latter-day take on that most ancient and barbaric way of keeping people from moving: to section them behind walls, interception regimes and barriers. It is also a policy that deals with migrants collectively – a ‘send ’em boats back’ sort of thing. Thing is, boats contain individual people who often have very personal and different individual biographies and claims to asylum.

Besides, no matter how safe and sunny Libya might be, asylum-seekers have a legal and moral right to make their claims heard, on a person-specific basis and preferably not on a rickety boat somewhere between Malta and North Africa.

In fairness, it’s not as if the current government’s track record on migration is terribly inspiring. In the last few years, we’ve witnessed people being sent back (to Eritrea and certain persecution in one notorious case), backroom talks with Berlusconi and Gaddafi – models of integrity and trustworthiness those two – that resulted in heaps of corpses in the Libyan desert, and vicious detention regimes.

That’s precisely why I expected Muscat to come up with something different. This is a man who constantly talks about rights, equality and a just society. But maybe that only holds if you’re gay and/or childless, and if your face is painted red and white. I did say last week that nationalism is simply another way of closing ranks. Question is, Will it be Malta tagħna lkoll or Malta tagħna biss?

The third question that got different answers was the one about the dockyard: Was it a good decision to close it down? Muscat said “No”. Gonzi had no doubts that it was “good, very very very good indeed”.

I’m at a loss what to say on this one. That’s because the question was about a non-event. As the good people of Cottonera who have to live with the noise and the dirt will tell you, the dockyard was never closed down. Rather, it was privatised. Which means there’s no way of knowing what Muscat and Gonzi were referring to.

I have a feeling the former had job losses in mind, which is why he said he didn’t agree. Gonzi on the other hand was probably thinking about the millions saved on state subsidies. That would make them both very right, although I still think that the Prime Minister could have spared a thought for the workers who lost their jobs and shown a tad less glee.

Grech won me over to the cause. Come 2018 we should just have a longish round of multiple-choice questions and get it over with. It’ll be quicker, cheaper (no loans or fourth-floor meetings necessary) and infinitely more telling.

mafalzon@hotmail.com