Prime Minister Joseph Muscat underlined the need for ongoing change and strongly defended amendments to the IVF law currently before parliament when he addressed the Labour annual general conference on Sunday. 

Change, he said, was never easy and always found opposition by those who did not want it or did not understand it.

But history was written by those who worked for change.

Dr Muscat said the social and economic changes made in the past by Labour had since been accepted and were now seen as natural, to the extent that those who opposed them did not mention them any more.

“I am proud to be leading the government that most improved the economy and achieved records in cutting unemployment, creating jobs and distributing wealth,” he said. This was also the government which turned a deficit into the strongest surplus in Europe.

Dr Muscat hit out at the PN for having, in its majority, voted against the Domestic Violence Act, saying that was an affront to those who suffered such violence. That vote was inexcusable and showed the inconsistency and division in the PN, he said. (The PN said the no vote was over the removal of a clause in the law protecting the unborn who were victims of such violence).

Dr Muscat defended the proposed changes to the IVF law, saying infertile couples needed to be helped as much as other people who were ill.

He said there would be every opportunity for more consultation, the government was ready to listen, but the current law was antiquated and it would be changed.

He stressed that the government was not picking a fight with the church. It respected what the church said and wanted dialogue. However the role of the government was not confessional. It had to help all sectors of society.

He stressed that embryo freezing was not abortion, and embryo freezing was first introduced in Maltese law in 2012. The changes the government was introducing would actually save more embryos than before.

The law changes, he said were also about ending discrimination. The state should no longer discriminate between so-called stable and unstable relationships or relationships on the basis of gender.

It was, after all, a constitutional amendment moved by the Opposition which said that one could not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.