Nationalist MP Michael Asciak yesterday explained that the ethics of responsibility play an important part in the well-being of the country as a whole, especially in the context of the pensions reform.

Dr Asciak was speaking in Parliament yesterday morning and said that he believed that the Labour party had always worked in the same way, only focusing on minor issues, without looking at the picture as a whole. Although he said that minor issues were also important, the Opposition was “missing the wood for the trees”.

The Labour party’s politics have always promoted the attitude that individual responsibility can be replaced by the government’s work, said Dr Asciak.

He added that the government’s proposals for amendments to the Social Security Act reflected the Nationalist party’s forward-looking approach. The proposals are aimed at reforming a system that has existed for a long time and that the Labour party had put established.

Although the idea at the time was a good one and the national minimum pension was guaranteed, the Labour party had absconded from allowing individual room for financial improvement, since every individual was only allowed one job and therefore one pension, Dr Asciak argued.

He said that a big step forward which this system will allow is that one will be able to work without paying social security contributions following retirement.

Dr Asciak insisted that the ethics of responsibility played an important part because the government would like to promote the mentality that people make use of private investment plans, life insurance and other saving methods. These methods will create a responsible society, which will eventually be rewarded through the second pillar pension.

The Nationalist spokesman emphasised that the Labour party has repeatedly said that the pensions reform was not an urgent issue and any reform could wait. He said the reality was very different and the problem was like a time bomb because the birth rate has decreased.

On the other hand, Labour party spokesman Karl Chircop said the MLP yesterday carried out an exercise with all the unions, which showed that it was not true that there was general consensus on the government’s proposals. Many of the unions did not agree with the retirement age going up to 65, or that 40 years of contributions that will need to be paid, he said.

Dr Chircop said that the Malta Union of Teachers (MUT) and the Malta Union of Midwives and Nurses (MUMN) were all out against the proposals. He insisted that the amendments would not only create new social taxes, but they would also tax people who are the weakest in society.

Malta has experienced the largest increase in tax burdens in the EU over the past years, when the EU average in fact decreased, Dr Chircop argued. He said that although Family and Social Solidarity Minister Dolores Cristina spoke about the falling demographic rates in Parliament on Monday, the government was only discouraging couples from having more children, because of the heavy burdens of taxes on the family as a whole.

Exaggerated taxes were putting excessive pressure on workers and families, since salaries had only increased by 1.5 per cent since the last election in 2003, Dr Chircop said.

The MLP spokesman said the amendments ignored certain categories of pensioners, like widowers and non-contributory pensioners, which formed part of small minorities, but the Labour party wants to give importance to all segments of society, especially those who are heavily disadvantaged.

He said that the system should safeguard adequacy and sustainability, but this aim was not being achieved. The Nationalist party, he said, is failing to admit that there was no consensus among the stakeholders in society.

He said that the Labour party in government would definitely reverse the proposed amendments, because the Opposition was not in favour of the amendments to increase the pension age and the number of years for which workers pay social security contributions, Dr Chircop concluded.