On the economic front it seems that as a country we are doing well.

Not just doing well, but thriving on a tangible positive feeling that we can achieve, we can improve and we can do better.

In general, many families seem to be enjoying the benefits of more family time and improved disposable income levels and the business community is more or less quite happy and upbeat about the present and future.

At least that is the impression I'm getting from sharing a life closely knit with that of the families and local businesses.

Quite reassuringly, the numbers and statistics seem to back these general feelings, which somehow makes the economic reality more real, and lessens the ever-present lurking and nagging concern, that it’s a fake transient situation, and that it’s meant to keep the people busy and happy while more of the country's 'gold' is  irreversibly squandered, just as long as a second term of power is secured for Labour.

Therefore since I trust Edward Scicluna's figures, I have to assume that our country is now at the stage when all its energy has to be focussed on sustaining that economic growth and ensuring that there is an equitable distribution of  all this wealth, in the broader sense of the word.

It naturally follows that if we are doing this well, we cannot justify the continued existence of poverty and social exclusion in our midst.

Not that state money matters should have ever been an excuse, don't get me wrong.  For as long as I can remember there has been money to splash on trivialities and dispensable pleasures but not for rooting out poverty. But in any case, if that was ever an excuse it cannot be any more now, because our country is rich, and today's Labour is supposed to be what's left of the left and if it rejects the poor now, it will be rejecting itself.

If we are doing this well we cannot justify families living in grossly substandard accommodation. Millions are being spent every year to patch up dilapidated condemned properties, and not acquire new ones from the building stock that already exists. 

Why the madness? Where is the catch? Or rather where is the cash going?

If we are doing this well we cannot justify the continued existence of precarious employment.

If we are doing this well we cannot justify the absolute need of charities to supply life saving medicines for certain conditions, to make up for the shortfall in the formulary list of free medicines available for our citizens.

If we are doing so well we cannot justify underinvestment in ways and means to diligently stitch our social fabric back together. We have to supply, NOW , the right help and support to individuals, particularly women and children who find themselves physically and socially destitute, and spurned by the slow and costly justice system. Those children are our future and those distraught mothers are nurturing that future.

We have to support our young people when they need us most and while they are accessible to us in schools.

If we are doing so well justice should be made fully accessible to the poor by removing the financial barriers that currently puts justice out of their reach in practice.

If we are doing so well we cannot justify not putting environmental health at the top of our agenda for the present and future.

If our country is now  more in possession of the means, then enforcement of environmental laws and regulations needs to be rigorously practised and we have to watch out more than ever what policies we launch.

A good example would be stopping the building debris mountain that is growing day by day just outside  Qrendi in spite of the multitude of enforcement notices  and reports from our local council, myself and goodness knows how many more asphyxiated residents. 

A second very good example is protecting the people of  Qrendi and Mqabba from the fumes of death they are forced to inhale all night every night from the residential height level chimney of a batching plant operating at the periphery of Mqabba as approached from Ta' Kandja.

The authorities know about it, but the little quiet people are left to choke and foot their medicine bills because enforcement of what is right does not take place.

Again I ask, now that the country is doing so well can the people have the services they pay for and deserve , so that everyone can get a better life or are we going to confine the doing very well  part to the powerful untouchable few, and the doing all the work and not too well to the masses whose emails are swiftly deleted by the very people they elected to make their voices heard?

Now that we are doing so well can the people of the south who bear the brunt of Malta's industry, have their national ecological parks in Xghajra, Marsascala area, in the Ghar Dalam , Casa Ippolito Birzebbuga area. 

Can Wied Fulija area be rehabilitated into another  nature park,  and can the destruction of Wied Moqbol be stopped immediately and the area regenerated and  turned  back into the archaeological, agricultural gem of immense ecogical value that it once  was? 

 I just heard that Wied Fulija has been quietly reopened into a fully fledged Taghna Lkoll tipping site again.....When is my poor beautiful village of Zurrieq ever going to share the national wealth that we are generating?  It just needs rehabilitation of these old Labour inflicted festering wounds, not having salt thrown into them.

It also needs to be left alone to share its natural beauty and the best cooked fresh fish delights with the rest of the world...

If we are doing so well and we are also getting more funds to help us cope with the challenge of accommodating refugees. Can  the South, which is also accommodating the rest of the nation  by taking on the immense weight of this ongoing human tragedy, namely Safi, Hal-Far, Marsa, Birzebbuga, have the necessary investment to improve the detention centres, open centres and their surroundings for the benefit of residents and migrants alike?

It is great that we are doing so well, but great wealth like great power comes with greater responsibility.

If the first 24 months of the legislature have posed a challenge for this new government, I believe that the next 36 months are going to be even more challenging particularly in disciplining itself  to uphold the environmental sustainability and authenticity of our beautiful archipelago, and in putting our new found wealth to the best use for the benefit of the entire nation.

And while the next chapter in this legislature's history unfolds from our New Parliament Building, I will watch, and contribute as best I can from my little seat in Parliament, relishing the interesting times that certainly await us all, and keeping you informed of what is really going on.