The Housing Authority Chairman has been at it again. Inserting her criticism of AD’s rent reform campaign into a long list of failures by the present Nationalist administration makes it all the harder to understand whether she is coming or going (Tut Tut… TMID 25 July 2005.) Was that a pathetically transparent attempt to gain the sympathies of the government’s critics in order to exploit them in her incomprehensible crusade against the Greens?

She persists in misrepresenting the AD rent reform campaign regardless of the fact that everybody else has understood it perfectly. In collecting signatures for a petition which will make a referendum possible, the Green Party has avoided making any promises at all. It is within our power and within the power of ordinary citizens to call a referendum and to have the iniquitous rent laws abolished. That is all that the law allows.

The Referenda Act, drawn up by our two adversaries, does not allow citizens to propose legislation, only to abrogate existing laws or parts of them. Our referendum bid has had the blessing of thousands of Maltese citizens and will enjoy that of very many more before it is over. From the deafening silence persisting for decades we have created a chorus of consensus in which Ms Micallef herself has now joined, even claiming to have been the first soloist to condemn the rent laws.

We could stop there. That in itself is a historic victory for a political party which is not represented in parliament. A reform of the rent laws is now a political necessity for both our adversaries. The issue is firmly on the political agenda and we will keep it there by persisting in the referendum bid until the paralysis of half a century turns into appropriate legislative action.

We have already gone beyond that stage and given some indication of the reasons why we have identified this issue as crucial. The blatant injustice to dispossessed owners of controlled rent properties is the kingpin, which, once removed, will necessitate a far-reaching reform of the whole property market.

We have made it clear that this grants our legislators an opportunity to create the conditions for a functioning rental market, easing the untenable upward pressure on property prices currently distorting the whole economy and wrecking our competitiveness in all sectors, particularly in the vital tourism sector. The fact that Ms Micallef cannot or refuses to see this wider picture is disappointing but not altogether surprising. Her allergy to anything Green is well known.

Starting from the ideological premise that the government should never intervene in any market, she assumes that a reform of the rent laws will be just that and nothing more. Greens have no such ideological qualms. We recognise that the present situation is one of massive state intervention producing a completely distorted market. It can only be brought to a rational functioning state through further and appropriate intervention. The government has poisoned the market for 60 years and must now provide the antidote.

If Ms Micallef believes that the present administration is incapable of creating the conditions for a functioning rental market with the resources at hand, she should be the first to ask for its resignation en masse. One in every four properties stands vacant in terms of the 1995 census. The November 2005 census is likely to show that the proportion of vacant properties has climbed even higher. At every census, decade by decade, regardless of requisitions, and other draconian laws, the proportion of vacant properties has continued to grow in a regular manner. The official record is there for all to see.

There is no reason to expect that anything will change in the November 2005 census except for the worse. In 2003 MEPA issued 13,000 home development permits when only 6,000 net new households were set up: a growing divergence increasing the existing surplus.

The challenge before the government is to find a way of re-connecting demand with massive oversupply without causing a catastrophe. Nobody wants a sudden drop in property prices. Letting off the pressure through the creation of a rental market is one safe option. Legislation must be designed to allow careful intervention on the economic valves until the system is back working in a rational manner. The establishment of a system of incentives and disincentives to entice owners to let their properties is a sine qua non. The culture of fear permeating our property market because of 60 years of insane and counterproductive legislation must be overcome.

The Housing Authority chairman should be on our side on this. One would expect her to fight for the creation of every new possible housing option and not attempt to shoot it down simply because the Greens propose it. Serving principally those clients who are naturally drawn to look to the government for all their needs, she may be unaware of the many thousands of others who would not be seen dead at her door. In the present climate producing astronomic property prices, there are thousands of young people facing the options: a) live with one’s parents forever, b) take on a debt one can never reasonably expect to repay, c) forget about forming a family.

The creation of a rental market related to current earnings may not be the ideal they always dreamt of but it is better than what they see ahead of them right now. Many have already acclimatised to renting also in the absurdly high rent market sustained by the artificial scarcity created by a property hoarding culture. Ms Micallef may have no record of it but hundreds of young people get away from their parents by teaming up to cover the rent of their singles home between them. Making liberalised rents cheaper is not something they would object to; perhaps communal life may end when they form permanent relationships.

What we would like to have from Ms Micallef is positive thinking, her own suggestions how this change for the better can be achieved. We have our own blueprint which we have conscientiously held back in view of the fact that we can promise nothing except an abrogation of insane legislation. Our Green Paper, which will be made public long before the government’s own white paper on rent reform will become available in 2006, will be nothing more than a framework in which everybody, including Ms Micallef, will be invited to express concerns, make suggestions and perfect the proposal. It will be up to government to act on it or otherwise. Being consistently negative and unproductive far in advance of any official Green proposal is not what the country expects of its Housing Authority chairman.

Dr Vassallo is chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika – The Green Party

www.alternattiva.org.mt