Nationalist MPs were nowhere to be seen during a parliamentary committee meeting concerning farmers in Żejtun, the Labour Party noted on Tuesday morning. 

The Monday night environmental committee meeting saw government MPs announce that they would be de-zoning 100 per cent of the area originally earmarked for development, effectively returning the area to its pre-2006 state. 

The government had previously advanced plans to hand over 120,000 square metres of land - the equivalent of 12 football pitches - to industrial development. 

Monday evening's pledge by government MPs built on an earlier one, made early in March, to ensure less than 25 per cent of the land was handed over to development. The government pledge came following pressure from NGO Wirt iż-Żejtun, residents and the town's local council to ensure agricultural land was not turned over to Malta Industrial Parks.  

Partit Demokratiku have also cranked up pressure for the government to act, filing an application to list the area as being in the public domain and noting that despite its professions, the government had not promised to reverse a 1988 decision and redefine the Bulebel industrial boundary. 

In its Tuesday morning statement, the Labour Party accused its PN rivals of hypocrisy. 

"This is symptomatic of Adrian Delia's PN," the PL said. "A party which is all about playing to the cameras, but which is nowhere to be seen when it comes to taking action," the PL said.