Labour leader Joseph Muscat said today that the test for the government was to show it could consistently win votes in Parliament.

He was speaking in Zabbar after newspapers reported today that Franco Debono would vote with the government on the Budget Measures Bill.

In his address, Dr Muscat also said that Labour would insist in the coming days and weeks that parliament and the people were above anybody else.

Referring to the Opposition motion calling for the resignation of Richard Cachia Caruana, Malta's representative to the EU, Dr Muscat said Mr Cachia Caruana was the most reclusive member of the government, yet one of the most expensive.

Describing him as 'puppet master' and the head of the government's 'clique', Dr Muscat said it appeared that in the coming weeks he wanted time to produce foreigners to speak in his favour (in the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which will first discuss the Opposition motion).

But for the Opposition, Dr Muscat said, the issue was that it would not accept a system of power which thought it was above parliament and the people. If Mr Cachia Caruana had a problem with accessing Nato documents, he should have gone before parliament and not acted 'behind people's backs' in an unacceptable manner. 

In any democracy, Dr Muscat said, no one was above the people, not even those who thought of themselves to be king-makers. Parliament and the people were above anyone else and the Opposition would work to ensure that was always the case.

In his address, Dr Muscat said that all sectors of society were important for the Labour Party.

The PL would safeguard the rights of the elderly and those over 40 with regard to their jobs.

More than ever before, however, the PL was the natural home of Malta's young people. The PL wanted to meet the aspirations of those who wanted to be better than they were today. It wanted to fulfil the dreams of parents who wanted their sons and daughters to have a better future.

Labour, he said, would be the key to social mobility, not just by criticising, but by providing solutions. Young people would be encouraged to further their education beyond secondary school, but those young people who opted to leave and were unemployed would be given incentives to follow training and hence the chance to succeed in life.

In his address, Dr Muscat said the PN was run by a clique which was trying to hold on to power through scaremongering about the future, particularly if Labour was elected.

But Labour, Dr Muscat said, would offer hope and solution to fulfil the people's dreams for a better future.

The government, he said, was being repeatedly found to be 'lying' or covering up abuse, a case in point being the mercaptan case, where it appeared that workers may even have been paid to keep silent.

Dr Muscat said it was difficult to believe that Austin Gatt, the then minister responsible for Enemalta, did not know about this. And now it looked like no one would assume responsibility.

The government, Dr Muscat said, had also been 'lying' when it claimed it was not told by the EU to cut back on its spending. Now an EU Commissioner had revealed that the government was told three times about the need for cutbacks.

Dr Muscat said the government was clinging to power. More than 100 days had passed without a division vote in parliament. The test for the government would be consistency. Would it be able to consistently win votes in parliament?

The PL never had any illusion that the oligarchy would cling on to its seats right up to the last possible day.

These people would continue to try to issue permits, waive bills and do favours as much as possible. Like somebody else (Dr Eddie Fenech Adami)  had said in 1987 (before the general election), the people should take what was offered to them, but they would be alone in the ballot booth and they should do what was best.

The coming days and weeks would be a testing time, Dr Muscat said. It would be tough for Labour. But despite the hurdles which were placed in its way, Labour was convinced that it was on the right side of history and history would recognise that it was working for a better Malta, the best in Europe.