Labour’s abhorrent ‘green’ agenda

I have no qualms saying the Labour Party has some very for-ward-looking policies and even capable politicians at this moment to run the country. But that is not enough for many who expected much much more from the Labour Party. 

Even former PN ministers and MPs who could have offered their valid services to the Nationalist opposition are apparently more interested in staying in the background or rake in comfortable retainers from their private practice, rather than do real politics. 

Indeed, I get the impression that some people militating in the Nationalist Party are somewhat comfortable on the Opposition benches. Well it makes sense: who wants to sacrifice a private sector salary for the pressures of ministerial life and its less than commensurate wage? Some have a family business to tend to. 

Labour’s past achievements aside, this administration is guilty of having presided over a disaster in the environmental field. It is true that in 2006 the Nationalist government with the helpful of then-environment minister George Pullicino and the PN’s secretary-general Joe Saliba, extended the building zones to effectively guarantee a deterioration of Malta’s environment for decades to come. Indeed, we are experiencing its sharp effects today with requests for development of these extended building zones today. 

But before 2006, Dom Mintoff and Lorry Sant created planning policies which fed nepotism, corruption and a disorganised and shabby destruction of the Malta and Gozo we knew. In 2013, Labour and Joseph Muscat in particular, could have easily redrawn the 2006 policies and those boundaries. Instead they cooked up the excuse that changing local policies was not legally possible or opened the doors for compensation. Indeed, they further tweaked the rules to extend development into the countryside and allow for higher buildings and additional storeys, apart from staffing the planning regulator with yes-men and women eager to reach suitable compromises with big business developers. 

This has not changed under the Abela administration. Last Friday’s decision to grant Joe Portelli and his partners Mark Agius (Ta’ Dirjanu), Samuel Saliba and Joseph Vella, a permit for countless apartments in Sannat, showed the complete detachment of the Planning Authority from green politics and policies – a true reversal of its mission statement. 

Labour cannot preach “environmental” politics while allowing speculators and greedy developers to dictate the way the Planning Authority decides. You cannot try and pass off urban parks and electric cars as “environmental” when the real challenges facing Malta are the problems of land use, planning permits and the corrupt interpretation of planning policies, the war on biodiversity, the creation of a privileged class of hunters and trappers, and the pro- high-rise policies. Forget bright new sparks like Aaron Farrugia... he is busy chasing the endorsement of Malta’s hunting community. 

Construction magnate Joe Portelli has been able to operate under the radar because he is backed by numerous investors who have influence over the political class and the media in general. He managed to have dreadful applications get a permit irrespective of the policies, social and environmental considerations or the impact they will leave in the long-term. And in front of numerous individuals the boastful Portelli always recounts his familiarity with Labour ministers and assures his investors of guaranteed success with his planning applications. His greed knows no bounds and his understanding of development is as crude as his appreciation of the importance of safeguarding our footprint. ‘Foot-print’ to him and his partners is all about buildings: he could not give a hoot if Malta and Gozo became one concrete block, as long as the money flows into his pockets. 

It’s no secret that big business is the lubricant for the operations of political parties and I am sure Labour has welcomed donations from this lobby. So all the drivel from politicians about protecting the environment is hypocrisy at its best. 

Take a look at those candidates and incumbents who are cuddling up with the hunting lobby. Not one of the political leaders chose to meet environmental NGO or even factor them in the election campaign. But with building speculators it has been hey presto, here we come. 

In 2022, if a social democratic party like Labour is truly serious about the environment, it will not come about as long as the party is implicitly allied with the class of businessmen running the construction industry. Because it is this what fuels legislation and policies. And only internal re-form inside parties pushing for a total realignment of policy-making in favour of the environment, can alter this bias. Don’t believe the hype that it is the PA that takes the final decisions on construction projects: a lot of government influence comes into play. The PA is run by political appointees, and its highest decision-making board is replete with ministerial appointees: if the government does not want a permit issued, it will decide so. So when the government decided that Żonqor was suddenly not the great idea it was back in 2014... it simply decreed so. 

My 35-year career in journalism has spanned from Mintoff’s Labour, Lorry Sant’s thuggery, the nascent Alternattiva Demokratika, the EU referendum campaign, to the great Muscat deception: I adore my country for its language, culture and history but I do not think the people running Malta’s main political parties do likewise. Because when a system of governance is serving the likes of Joseph Portelli, then the people running the country have truly lost their soul. Their identity is not the same one we share: the one informed by the skylines we gaze upon, the villages we love, the countryside, cliffsides and shorelines we derive inspiration from. Neither does Portelli and his voracious investors care much for this. Only fat profits will do. So when they find the powers that be only too willing to bend over at their desire to plunder, then we are truly faced with a threat to the Malta we love. 

We owe it to our children to be frank about this level of and the pathetic response from the Labour government. Even Labourites cannot allow the PL and its government to allow such an egregious destruction of the environment.