It is not only recently that we have started feeling the effects of the rampant development (sic) of the real estate market. The relatively few gain relatively a lot, and the rest have to live with the situation. In turn, this negative effect is here mostly felt by the first time home-buyers, mainly young couples trying to start their family.
A lot has been said and discussed; yet little has been actually done. Young people – those involved in politics and those who are not – have come together to discuss what has to be done. The Church too felt the need to do something, joined the protest, and set up a group to discuss the issue, and later on came out saying that the situation is unjust.
Labour has always looked at this issue in clear perspective. Without serious help, we cannot get out of this unjust circuit of rampant development. And, last week, came Labour’s answer to this very serious and worrying situation. Families will be helped out of their seemingly unsolvable problem, and a Labour government will indeed help, without distinction, those who are looking for help in housing.
Many a time in one’s political life one is faced with serious problems like housing and other issues that seem impossible to solve. The easiest thing to do is to sit, cross one’s hands and say the proverbial “jahasra”. Otherwise there is to do what Labour has been doing, getting hearts and minds together, listening, discussing, and then planning for the future.
The economics of change are such that we are made to believe that little can be done to alter the route of present decline. Labour however is showing the contrary to be true. With the vigour that the “new beginning” exercise has brought to politics in Malta, Labour is clearly showing that some things can actually be done to overcome the negative changes being brought about in our society.
Globalisation and liberalisation in this new economic order do not need be a totally negative experience. Labour, by its way of doing politics, is showing that although one encounters difficulties, these could possibly be overcome by talking, understanding, planning and doing. It’s not by the ideas of the few, but by the ideas of all concerned, ably planned and managed, that we can find the way out of some of our predicament. This government however has done the precise opposite, and has been led by the few, for the few, with the actual disastrous results.
The economic world we live in today does create very difficult challenges. Globalisati-on is dictating the way we do economics and politics. For example, low wages in Asia and elsewhere are directing manufacturing towards them at the cost of much lost employment. But, as a nation, we can, with the new spirit of entrepreneurship, move on, find the right niches and deliver to our people an economy that provides a much needed respite in our falling incomes. At the same time we can start rebuilding again our quality of life.
Labour is showing with vigour that there is a way forward. A way of making everybody count. A political system of real dialogue and genuine solidarity and serious leadership to rid Malta of its present corrupt and inapt government… Adequate housing for all, as well, is for us not a totally lost cause.
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Dr Michael Falzon is the MLP Deputy Leader