Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi said the Financing of Political Parties Bill would institutionalise discrimination against the PN and the House was being asked to act as an accomplice to it.

While the Bill prohibited State funding of political parties, facts showed that the PL was a multi-millionaire while the PN was not.

Its 28 properties, together with other land, were worth millions of euros.

The PN was asking that Labour, which had stolen these properties, return them to the people. Otherwise it should be required to declare them together with what it had paid for them and the profit it earned on them. The Bill would do nothing to eliminate this discrimination.

Turning to Australia Hall, he said when the previous government had sent a judicial letter notifying the PL that court proceedings would be initiated, it did not discriminate against it since it sent judicial letters to all emphyteuta who failed to take care of properties. Australia Hall had been gutted in a midnight blaze in 1998. There were no electrical wires inside. It appeared that the Hall had been torched intentionally, he said. Who could have benefited?

The PL was “a gentleman with other people’s money”. The fact the PN was in financial difficulties confirmed it was not corrupt and focused on the country’s interests.