Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/804561
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 29 MARCH 2017 TIM DIACONO OPPOSITION MP Claudio Grech urged politicians from both sides of the House to halt the descent of local politics into a slanging match devoid of actual policy talk. Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the proposed Media Bill yesterday evening, Grech warned that political debates on policy have become few and far between, while mudslinging and the exchange of insults have become the order of the day. "It is much easier to debate through insults, because debating on a policy level requires research which is time-consuming," he sad. "Yet the more time passes, the more damage this style of zero-sum poli- tics is doing to our political context. It is as though Parliament has be- come a modern-day version of the gladiators or a reality TV show, rather than two political forces with a common goal to improve the qual- ity of people's lives." In a clear departure from the dis- course of his leader Simon Busuttil, Grech said that Malta's most serious problems had existed before Labour was elected to government in 2013. Here he cited the "crisis" of measly pensions, a growing wave of mental health problems, school bullying, drugs, and the impact of immigra- tion on communities. He said he was inspired after his son questioned why MPs cannot do anything to help his friend who is suffering from a rare tumour. "He asked me: 'What difference can you truly make if you cannot do anything to help my friend Zac?' I tried to explain to him that we do a lot of work, but that incident forced me to ask myself about what we give most importance to in Parliament." News Claudio Grech warns against perils of 'reality TV politics' Number of foreign workers in Malta rises to over 34,000 THERE were 34,157 foreign people registered as working in Malta as of September 2016, da- ta tabled in Parliament yesterday evening revealed. The highest number of these came from Italy (5,724 people), the United Kingdom (4,218 people), Bulgaria (2,187 people), the Phillipines (1,625 people), Hungary (1,454 people), Roma- nia (1,407 people), Serbia (1,380 people). There also 283 registered im- migrants from China, 107 from the United States, 443 from In- dia, and only 326 from Libya. There is also one from Saudi Arabia, one from the United Ar- ab Emirates, one from Mongo- lia, two from Uganda, and three from North Korea. The data shows that 25,115 of these workers hail from EU or EEA counties, while 9,042 are third country nationals. 20,380 of them are men, while 13,776 of them are women. This represents a signficiant spike in the number of foreign workers in Malta in recent work- ers – only 21,000 were registered as such back in March 2014. The statistics were tabled by education minister Evarist Bar- tolo in response to a parliamen- tary question by Opposition MP Carm Mifsud Bonnici.