Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1113313
19 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 MAY 2019 INTERVIEW still there… That doesn't change the fact that past Nationalist administrations were responsible for creating the 'no-go zones' you now complain about. So I'll repeat my earlier question: why should we trust the PN to 'solve' a problem, when it created that problem itself? The 'no-go zones' have in- creased because of the lack of en- forcement in those areas. If there was adequate enforcement, you wouldn't have so many cases of large numbers of people living in sub-standard conditions. But to answer you about the PN's responsibility. Yes, there was re- sponsibility. And the party shoul- dered that responsibility when it suffered two consecutive defeats. How long are we going to carry on flagellating the Nationalist Party for every mistake it made in the past? We paid for those mistakes: and heftily, too. But the PN did a lot of good things as well. The PN brought about great changes in this country. I myself would not have been able to go to University, if it weren't for those changes: because I come from a working-class fam- ily. Wasn't it the PN which flung open the doors to tertiary educa- tion in Malta…? Yes… in 1987. Look how deep into history you have to dig, to find examples of 'great Nationalist achievements'… OK, how about 2003, then, when we took Malta into the Eu- ropean Union? But that takes us back to where we started: the PN led us into Europe… only to now complain about the effects of EU accession… No, we are not complaining about the effect of accession. I'm sorry, I have to insist on this. We are complaining about the lack of a plan for third country im- migration. The two things are to- tally different. And we complain about it because it is a national concern. This newspaper con- ducts surveys; you know as well as I do that there is serious con- cern about the large number of third country nationals coming to Malta. Do you have any idea how many people are coming, every day, from Bangladesh… India… Pakistan… is this part of a plan? What do you have against people from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, anyway? Adrian Delia recently warned us about the 'danger' that 'future schoolchildren will be taught by Pakistani teachers'. Do you really think this sort of 'nationality-shaming' is doing the PN any favours? I have nothing against peo- ple from those countries, or anywhere else. The argument is about the economic model cho- sen by the present government. It's a very simple model: import as many foreign workers as you can, asking for the lowest wages possi- ble; and sustain the flow of prop- erty by means of all these foreign- ers. Is that acceptable to you? The question Is whether it is acceptable to the industries employing them. Farsons recently told Delia that they were concerned at his proposal to limit third-country immigration, as they need thousands of workers they can't find locally. What is the PN's response to those concerns? Do you think all these foreign workers are employed at Far- sons? Most end up working in construction… What's the difference? Sandro Chetcuti raised much the same point: without a steady influx of manual Labour, construction in Malta would grind to a halt. What is the PN proposing to stop that from happening? I was present at a recent meet- ing of the Malta Developers' As- sociation, and I can tell you ex- actly what Sandro Chetcuti said. He complained that there isn't a long-term plan. Adrian Delia spoke after him, and said the same thing. But then, the Prime Minister spoke… and what did he say? He said: 'I don't agree we need to plan. I don't see any rea- son to plan ahead for the next 20 years." What is that, if not short- term planning at its worst? So… what is the PN's plan? How will the PN put its own immigration policies into practice when in government? Our plan is to ask ourselves what this country will need in 15, 20 years' time. We need a mas- terplan, tailored for the specific social realities of various parts of Malta. Paceville, for instance. There was a masterplan once. What happened to it? It was drawn up, so I'm guessing it was paid for… but then it was put back in a drawer and forgotten. If you ask me, that is symptomatic of this government's entire ap- proach. Earlier, you talked about the PN 'flagellating itself'… and it seems, at moments, that this is happening very literally. Recently, you came in for criticism at the hands of Nationalist critics for accepting a TV sponsorship from the Tumas Group, despite the link between '17 Black' and the same company. Without entering into the issue itself: this was the umpteenth case of PN exponents publicly attacking other PN exponents. Can you comment about this? What does it tell us about the state of the party today? I can only speak for myself. When there was a process to elect a new party leader [in 2017], it was a different process from the one we were used to. Before, only the party councillors would vote; but then, the process was changed. To be fair, it was Simon Busuttil who opened up the elec- tions to the card-holding mem- bers. I agreed with that change, and the principle it was based on: that the people would have a say in electing the party leader. With 20,000 voters, the process is now much more representative… not just of the party, but also of soci- ety as a whole. And those 20,000 voters elected Adrian Delia… who was an outsider to the party; he had never been actively in- volved in politics before. The re- action was therefore somewhat predictable. Inevitably, there were going to be people who had been militating within the party for many years, who'd ask them- selves: 'Who is Adrian Delia? Where is he coming from?' They would have been uncomfortable with the choice of new leader… Don't you think that's putting it rather mildly? Simon Busuttil had asked the PN council to expel Delia on the eve of the election… There was, as I said, resistance to Delia as the new PN leader. And I am an example of this my- self. It is a well-known fact that I did not support Adrian Delia for the leadership; but after he was elected, not only did I not find the door closed to me… but Delia flung it wide open. And he did this not just for me, but for everyone in the party. Now, I can understand that people might not agree with Delia about everything…. Nor should they. It would be foolish to follow the party leader blindly in everything. I myself publicly disagreed with the PN's position on divorce, for instance. And I was the PN's Information Secretary, at the time. But let's be clear about this. Adrian Delia is the leader of the Nationalist Party. It is useless to deny this: the people chose him, not anyone else. Now: if we are not going to respect the demo- cratic process, in this instance… just look at what a contradiction it would be. We, the PN, are the party that fought for democracy in the 1980s. And now, we are going to go against a democratic decision, taken internally by the PN? It's absurd. Adrian Delia is the leader of the Nationalist Par- ty. And that's that. a plan'… PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES BIANCHI Do you accept that a whole category of third country nationals were recently found to be working for 1.45euro an hour?