Labour will introduce party financing law ‘immediately’

Party financing, a law protecting whistleblowers, and the removal of the statute of limitation for acts of political corruption will be a new Labour government's first acts of legislation by the time it gets to approve the 2013 Budget, Labour leader Joseph Muscat has told Radju Malta's Ghandi Xi Nghid.

"We are looking forward to see that this law is introduced immediately," Muscat said when asked over the emergency of party financing as one of the unexpected themes of the 2013 election.

"Labour publishes its accounts, a statement of income and expenditure and a balance sheet every year at its general conference - for us it's no big deal to say what we have spent in our electoral campaign," Muscat - who was called on by incumbent Lawrence Gonzi to declare who was bankrolling the Labour campaign - said.

"We indicate the amount of donations we have... but today we don't have a party financing law. But we look forward to see that this law is introduce immediately, if elected to power," Muscat said.In recent days Muscat also noted that a Labour government would implement the party financing law, using Debono's draft law as the base for discussion. 

The Labour leader turned his guns on Lawrence Gonzi, calling on the prime minister to publish the PN's accounts for all the years since he has been party leader.

"I hear deputy leader Simon Busuttil saying that he cannot answer for anything that has happened before he was elected deputy leader in the past two months... in my case, I was taken to task over events that happened over 30 year ago, so I think Busuttil's replies on party financing have lacked responsibility," Muscat said.

Muscat also raised the problem of Lawrence Gonzi's dilemma as to whether he should grant a presidential pardon to entrepreneur George Farrugia, one of the persons of interest in a police investigation into allegations of kickbacks paid by commodities firm Trafigura to a former Enemalta consultant for the supply of oil to the state utility.

"The issue of this pardon is only down to the absence of a Whistleblowers' Act. Resting on the institution of the pardon is simply not enough - we cannot rest on the good will of politicians to dispense some pardon when it is likely that politicians are involved in the allegations," Muscat said.

His comments echoed those of Farrugia's lawyer Franco Debono - the Nationalist MP whose vote against Gonzi's budget brought down the government and paved the way for elections - who claimed on One TV that there was "something fishy" in the way that Gonzi was defending minister Austin Gatt, who was responsible for Enemalta during the time of the alleged kickbacks.

Muscat also denied claims by Simon Busuttil that the PL had leaked documents related to the kickbacks to MaltaToday, which broke the story. "It's a figment of his imagination - we were never aware of these allegations."

Muscat also defended his party's decision to support the introduction of civil partnerships for gay couples, saying that Malta had matured to an age where it had reckoned with the need for new civil liberties.

"The biggest value at stake is equality - giving the same opportunities to everyone, allowing those people who take them to move on, and helping those who need it. I don't know whether civil partnerships are a vote-winner or not... when divorce was introduced, a year on we saw that there was none of the social cataclysm that had been predicted. People are realizing that this was a natural development. It will be the same way with gay unions. People will look back saying that this was the right thing to do."

Muscat also said that there was a bipartisan consensus that gay adoptions should not be regulated by ideological sensibilities, but on what experts felt was in the best interest of the child.

The Labour leader was also questioned on Labour's stand on hunting and the EU ban on spring hunting and trapping in Malta.

"We have told hunters and trappers that we will be proceeding on three points of principle: that we are and will stay EU members, and that we cannot breach EU laws; but that there are laws in our national legislation that are over and above EU regulations, so we believe Maltese laws should not be more onerous than EU law; and that we will use derogations from EU law wherever we can.