There’s an apparent contradiction in what Joseph Muscat is saying in our interview today about his parliamentary secretary for planning, Michael Falzon: “All the decisions are clear in my mind and I will take them when the time is right.”

The obvious question is, if they are so clear what’s to stop the Prime Minister taking those decisions today? Or, indeed, what stopped him taking decisions several months ago when this newspaper had revealed a scandalous deal involving the Lands Department, for which Dr Falzon is responsible, and a member of the Gaffarena family?

Ironically, this issue was just starting to go Labour’s way when Malta Today published a story two weeks ago revealing that former Nationalist Health Minister Joe Cassar had obtained a second-hand car from another member of the Gaffarena family and paid for it by means of a relatively small donation to his own party.

The revelation caused Dr Cassar to step down from the PN’s front bench, or perhaps Simon Busuttil pushed him. But what did not emerge till last Sunday was that Joe Gaffarena also footed an €8,000 bill for works carried out the former health minister’s home.

Even though he claims to have been the victim of a frame-up, it does not appear that Dr Cassar did his party many favours when this story first broke. Or if he did tell the PN leader the full extent of his alleged involvement with Mr Gaffarena, Dr Busuttil did not act quickly enough.

But while one can argue about the whys and wherefores of that – it is important for the PN to reveal which of those versions is correct – what happened next threw the ball firmly back in the Prime Minister’s court: Dr Cassar resigned as an MP.

In one fell swoop, therefore, practically all the government’s attacks on the Opposition over this issue were nullified. Not because the former health minister acted correctly. On the evidence we’ve seen so far, he certainly did not. But for two other reasons.

The first is that what is alleged to have taken place occurred in the past, while the PN was still in government. Dr Muscat romped home at the polls in 2013 on the back of promises to eradicate all the bad that had gone on before and implement a new style of politics which had transparency and meritocracy firmly at the centre. We all know what happened there.

But secondly, by leaving Parliament Dr Cassar has gone a step further than practically all that came before him even though he insists he will fight to clear his name.

Compare that with the actions of Labour in many instances: two judges that should have been impeached, an acting police commissioner, and – in what is by no means an exclusive list – Dr Falzon.

In our interview today, the Prime Minister’s responses on this issue are uncharacteristically weak” “The Opposition has taken no stand”; “(Simon Busuttil) defended him to the very end”; “Dr Busuttil failed to take action over a number of MPs.”

When faced with a position that is difficult to defend, it is perhaps only natural to expect a politician to attempt to shift the focus. But given the past week’s developments, it has become an increasingly difficult and futile pursuit.

As Dr Busuttil has rightly said, people want to know what the Prime Minister is going to do with his parliamentary secretary. So, for the umpteenth time, what are the “clear decisions” he has reached?

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