‘Labour’s a broad church seeking a popular balance’ – Muscat

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has reiterated his belief that increasing minimum wage would reduce competitiveness, and that in-work benefits were raising low wages without burdening the private sector.

“This supplement should be paid by the State not the private sector. In spite of our positive economic growth, new burdens on the private sector would be a Pyrrhic victory… it would endanger jobs,” he stated on PBS's Dissett tonight.

He said that if growth rates keep their positive trend, the minimum wage could be revisited. But he qualified his statement saying that raising minimum wages would bring new costs. “We’re not going to endanger the situation just to be popular,” Muscat said.

Muscat defended his ‘Third Way’ credentials when he was challenged on the national minimum pension and PPPs in healthcare.

“I don’t think you’ll find any other EU country that has raised pensions by 18%,” Muscat said of an increase in pensions for the lowest beneficiaries announced in the Budget. “But we need to wait for a better economy before raising it further,” he said.

But the prime minister was at ease describing him as being on the right, economically. “I don’t believe in left or right. Economically, I am totally on the right. I believe in the private sector and I am pro-business. Socially, I am left-wing – the government must redistribute income in a just manner… I believe in harnessing the free market. Call it third-wayist, progressive…”

You might call it neoliberal, Dissett presenter and TVM head of news Reno Bugeja chimed in.

“Certainly not,” Muscat replied. “You look at what Schroeder and Blair did… they gave the private sector a chance to create jobs and generate the wealth to be redistributed. We don’t subscribe to the socialist maxim to tax more to pay for social services, but to tax less and collect more.”

He also refused comparisons with the UK on health privatisation and PPPs, and said he would focus on best practices on healthcare. “Germany uses PPPs to sustain its healthcare investment whilst keeping low deficits.”

Muscat described his Labour Party as a broad church that had to appeal to as wide a cross-section of voters as possible, or risk becoming a pressure group.

“Modern centre-left parties like ours have found a balance between business and self-employed, and workers and pensioners,” Muscat said.

He claimed that on his lacklustre environmental credentials, he would open himself up to “more dialogue” although his reply veered off-course to boast of that controversial land-guzzler, the as-yet-unlicensed American University of Malta.

“I think the MEPA demerger will introduce more rationality, and will balance environmental protection and the public’s vocal calls for less planning bureaucracy,” he said.

And although Brussels is now on the warpath over Labour’s insistence on opening the finch-trapping season, Muscat said he would not just bow down to anything the European Commission says. “I think we have a strong argument… I think we are right. It will be the Court to decide. I cannot fear the EU just because it says something…”

Gaffarena, Ombudsman, IVF, traffic

Muscat said he would not yet publish an inquiry into the way businessman Marco Gaffarena was granted fast-track expropriation monies from the Lands Department, not to prejudice an ongoing National Audit Office investigation. “If there will be legal grounds to revoke the lands granted [to Gaffarena] we will take steps.”

He also said that he hoped to see a resolution between his government over its policy to hold grievances hearings for army personnel, and the Ombudsman’s legal challenge to be the arbiter of such complaints. “I would remark that the recent court decision [confirming the Ombudsman’s claims against the government] has clearly shown Lawrence Mintoff to be a most independent judge,” Muscat said of the former Labour Party MEP candidate whose appointment was met with protest by the Opposition.

Muscat stood by his personal stance to support embryo freezing, while claiming he understands critics of the IVF law’s revision.

“Today’s law already allows ‘exceptional circumstances’ for the freezing of embryos, and nobody will say that today’s law is allowing abortion… so I will continue to make people understand that extending embryo freezing is not abortion, as some people are claiming. Embryo freezing is already allowed by Maltese law. As the law stands, I think this principle is already there and I want to widen access. I will keep consulting and trying to convince people.”

Muscat was cautious about suggestions to make public transport free.

“We are trying to create new ways of managing traffic better, such as new roads, introducing the tidal system, and incentives to drive scooters of less than 125cc for motor-vehicle licence owners. In the medium-to-long term, we must provide better road infrastructure; and improve our public transport,” he said, but said free public transport at this stage was not a key concern.

“The priority should be an efficient public transport system, punctuality, frequency, and ease of access for people in all villages.”