Electoral defeat has “miraculous powers” as it got the Nationalist Party speaking about subjects like transparency and being closer to the people, according to Labour Party deputy leader Toni Abela.
“This week, they gave birth to a new statute. The new amendments are a cut-and-paste of what the Labour Party did.
“They can change as much as they want in the statute but it’s useless unless people change. It’s not statutes that make good leaders. It’s good leaders that make good statutes and they have not figured this out,” he said when closing the second day of the party’s annual general conference themed Malta: Maltese, European, Global.
He also spoke about the differences between the PL and PN governments, saying: “Whenever the PN criticise us it is because they wanted to do it themselves so, having failed, they try to stop us.”
Labour, he said, was addressing the reality of poverty that the PN set aside as a “perception”.
This government was reducing water and electricity bills for the people whereas the PN government liked dishing out bills.
The public transport problem was being addressed and projects, like the Cottonera waterfront, were finally materialising. It had taken the Nationalists longer than it took to build a pyramid to get that project off the ground, he said.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat would be generating €1 billion through the citizenship scheme whereas, for the previous administration, money was “like peanuts” it threw at endless reports.
He accused Opposition leader Simon Busuttil of revealing details of internal negotiations between the parties on the citizenship scheme, something that, Dr Abela noted, was never done in politics.
Dr Busuttil had also erred when he declared, on Italian television, he would withdraw citizenships obtained through the scheme if the PN was elected to government.
Referring to the resolution on the scheme approved by the European Parliament, Dr Abela said it was the first time that a political party had moved a motion against its own country.
“This is political childishness: if you can’t win, you play dirty. The PN will never agree with the scheme and are now insisting on permanent residence. They want people with their feet glued to the ground,” he said.
Earlier, PL chief executive Gino Cauchi gave a breakdown of the financial situation for July 2012 to July 2013.
The party had an income of €2.8 million against an expenditure of €2.7 million (€1.5 million was spent on political activities).
The year closed with a balance of about €112,500 but when considering some unsettled expenses, this turned in a loss of €21,800, which was €100,000 less than the year before. The party’s consolidated fund showed that the financial year opened with €3.2 million, he said.