Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/825522
maltatoday, THURSDAY, 18 MAY 2017 4 News Free hormone therapy for trans people - Labour TIM DIACONO A Labour government will offer free hor- mone replacement therapy for transgen- der individuals, Prime Minister and Labour leader Joseph Muscat has an- nounced. The proposal was included in a Labour policy document launched this after- noon at a press conference in Valletta that outlines Muscat's plans for Malta to take a "liberal leap forward". Muscat also pledged gender balance on government boards, meaning that rep- resentation of both males and females on boards must not be lower than 40%. It will also introduce guidelines for TV stations to encourage them to ensure a gender balance amongst participants in debates on current events. As already announced, it will also in- troduce gay marriage before Parliament breaks for summer recess and start a public consultation on recreational mar- ijuana by the end of the year. Throughout the legislature, the gov- ernment will also launch a debate on the possible regularisation of prostitution. Muscat made it clear that he was not seeking to "open a market" in the sector but rather to safeguard prostitutes, who are often victims of sex trafficking. Indeed, he suggested that Malta could adopt the Nordic model that criminal- ises clients of prostitution but not the prostitutes themselves. "These women are emarginated, ex- posed to the worst sort of abuse, and are considered as slaves," he said. "Interna- tional reports often cite Malta as a loca- tion for the trafficking of young women and the time has come to address this issue." He reiterated his pledge to push for gender quotas in Parliament, which he insisted will be a temporary measure until the country "gets used to the idea" of equal gender representation in the House. "The idea we have in mind is not a pu- nitive one that will replace elected male MPs with women, but rather to add women MPs over and above the elected MPs," he said. Muscat cast doubt on PN leader Simon Busuttil's pledge to introduce gay mar- riage and retain all the pro LGBT+ legis- lation introduced by the current Labour government. "His promise is of small consolation; after all, the PN have retained the same people within the party who were against civil unions and indeed added people with more extreme views," he said. Specifically, he called out former jus- tice minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici for refusing to allow trans-person Josanne Cassar to marry her partner, PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami for threat- ening to resign from the PN if the party voted in favour of civil unions and di- vorce, and PN candidate Josie Muscat who had said it is not natural for two people of the same sex to be in a rela- tionship. "Now they want us to believe that they have converted, but the public will real- ize that this is nothing but political des- peration." 'I have information from PN that Egrant story was a co-ordinated lie' Responding to questions from the press, Muscat also claimed to have internal in- formation from within the Nationalist Party that the allegations that his wife owns the Panama company Egrant were part of a coordinated lie. On Tuesday, Muscat told a political ac- tivity that Busuttil had known from be- forehand that Daphne Caruana Galizia had planned to publish the Egrant allega- tions on her blog. "I have internal information from the PN that what I said is true, and I even know the name of the person who was coordinating it all," he said. Muscat also played down comparisons between his pledge to resign if an ongo- ing magisterial inquiry links him with Egrant and his resistance to remove Kon- rad Mizzi from his Cabinet and Keith Schembri as chief of staff. MaltaToday asked the Prime Minister the same question a student asked him at today's university debate: "If you see something wrong in owning a Panama company, then why didn't you take action against Mizzi and Schembri?" Muscat responded that the two issues were separate and that, in Konrad Mizzi's case, a problem would have only arose had he not declared his offshore Panama company in his declaration of assets. "If he hadn't declared his company it would have meant that he was trying to hide it from the public," he said. "If he hadn't declared it before the Panama Pa- pers story broke out, then it would have been a different story altogether." Malta Chamber urges politicians to 'lead by example' Calling for full independence of public entities, Malta Chamber urges people in public office to lead by example and take the moral high ground JURGEN BALZAN IN a pre-electoral document present- ed to the country's political leaders, the Malta Chamber called on people in public office, to lead by example and take the indisputable moral high ground against dubious practices. The Chamber's pre-electoral propos- als documents says that politicians are elected for five-year terms and their outlook is short-term. "Business and investment has a long- er time-span and politicians must en- sure that their work and their actions are complementary to that of entre- preneurs who have a longer vision and strive for a legacy that outlives them." The Chamber presented the docu- ment, which is titled "Policy Proposals for a Competitiveness-centred Elec- toral Manifesto" to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and the Leader of the Opposition Simon Busuttil in sepa- rate meetings. In all, the document proposes 71 concrete deliverables split into 12 chapters, each tackling an im- portant aspect of Malta's economy. With the country's institutions, in- cluding the police and the attorney general coming under increased pub- lic scrutiny over their handling of the alleged corruption scandal involving the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff, Keith Schembri, the Chamber called for independent and functioning in- stitutions. The Chamber called on a new gov- ernment to ensure "full independence of public entities from any direct or in- direct political interference while en- acting all the necessary constitutional reforms to strengthen governance." The Chamber also expressed con- cern on the unprecedented increases in the public sector's wage bill and explained that apart from the obvious effect this was having on the public purse, this was also exerting undue pressure on the private sector which was struggling to fill vacancies. The document called on all politi- cal parties not to continue with the present momentum of public sector growth and incentivise surplus public servants to shift to the private sector. Detailing the difficulties being ex- perienced by the manufacturing sec- tor in Malta, the Malta Chamber said that it needed a concerted effort to re- establish its position as a major con- tributor to the country's economy and employment. The Malta Chamber reiterated that the incoming government must pri- oritise efforts to lobby the Europe- an Commission to enact legislative changes to the EU's regional policy to eliminate discriminatory classifi- cation criteria. Being an island state, Malta was being discriminated against when compared to other remote is- land regions which are not states. To this end, the Malta Chamber called on an incoming government to make the necessary representations in favour of a change in the relevant European legislation which is up for review soon. The Malta Chamber criticised both political parties for promising a num- ber of measures such as parental sick leave, paternal leave, extending the maternity leave, increasing minimum wage further and compensating pub- lic holidays that fall on a weekend, may have the reverse effect in eroding companies' competitiveness and make certain categories of the labour mar- ket less attractive to employ. The rising challenges being faced by the private sector were also brought up in the document, identifying suit- able human resources for their opera- tions and maintaining competitive- ness due to the related increases in labour costs. The pre-electoral document also underlined the Malta Chamber's pro- posed solution to the national airline Air Malta. The Chamber called on a new government to reduce Air Malta's operational costs, rectify the airline's debt situation and subsequently divide the company's shareholding into three parts namely, the Government, an in- ternational aviation strategic partner and local investors.