Labour leader Alfred Sant’s budget reply was the subject yesterday of a Labour Party statement accusing the Nationalist Party of hypocrisy, and of a Broadcasting Authority statement accusing the Bondi Plus programme presenter, Lou Bondi, of twisting facts.

And in a second statement in as many days criticising the Broadcasting Authority (BA), the Nationalist Party accused the authority of giving in to pressure by the MLP’s secretary general.

The MLP said that the closer the general election got, the more the Nationalist Party was showing how hypocritical and intolerant it was. The MLP was referring to a PN statement the previous day sharply criticising Reno Borg, a BA member, for taking part in a programme on the Labour Party’s One TV when he praised the Labour leader’s reply to the budget speech.

The PN, the MLP said, was in a panic and wanted the country to hear only one side of the coin – the side which praised and glorified government and the Prime Minister.

The PN had grown so arrogant, it charged, that it now expected it could interfere into who could be invited to appear on the private television stations. The PN, the MLP added, expected the right not to allow anyone who thought differently from it, to express an opinion.

The attack on Dr Borg was one in a string over the recent past in which the PN leaders had gone all out against anyone who disagreed with them, and the PN targets included the jury system, the Ombudsman, magistrates and judges, economists and the auditor general. Their one sin, the MLP said, was to differ from the PN or to hand down judgements which the PN did not like.

But the PN’s unbridled hypocrisy was obvious from its statement attacking Dr Borg for appearing on One TV, while not doing anything similar about Alfred Mallia Milanes, another member of the BA, appearing on the PN’s Net TV on budget day, as he had every right to do, to praise the budgetary measures and the Prime Minister, the MLP charged.

It added that Mr Bondi, with the blessing of the PBS chairman and executive head, broke the regulations established by the authority, a claim Mr Bondi denied in a statement issued yesterday evening.

The BA, on its part, accused Lou Bondi of twisting facts when on Monday he commented on a BA decision not to approve the subject of a programme Mr Bondi intended to carry on the State-funded PBS that day. The subject was Dr Sant’s reply to the budget speech.

The BA said that last September it approved the schedule for the present season and directed the PBS to notify it monthly and in advance about the subjects being treated in current affairs programmes. The BA said it informed the PBS it would be prepared to consider a subject change if notified 24 hours beforehand. The intention behind the directive was to maintain balance in the pre-electoral season.

The BA said the season had hardly started when the PBS were found guilty of breaching the directive by not informing it in time that Mr Bondi had changed the subject for the

8 October programme, to deal with another subject, which was the PN’s general council.

The date of the Opposition Leader’s reply to the budget speech had been known for long but it was only last Saturday that the BA was informed by PBS that Mr Bondi was proposing to change the subject, to deal instead with the Labour leader’s reply to the budget. That day, the MLP secretary general informed the BA’s executive head that the MLP did not intend to send a representative to the programme.

In these circumstances, the BA said, it felt, without anyone’s prompting, that there could not be the necessary impartiality in the programme on the budget reply, if there was to be no representative of the opposition. So it did not approve the subject change proposed by the presenter.

It was therefore shameful, the BA charged, that Mr Bondi should liken the BA’s decision to the behaviour of an African regime. Mr Bondi’s comparison of the situation with that when in November 2006, when there was only an opposition representative on a programme because a minister had refused to take part, did not hold water, the BA said. At the time, the BA said, it did not know beforehand what subject would be treated. Nor was the situation comparable with the present, it added.

The BA said it wanted to point out that it was not true, as Mr Bondi had implied, that whenever a politician decided not to take part in a current affairs programme, that the programme should not be presented. This was not automatic but when, as in the present case, it was clear that the impartiality as laid down in the constitution would not be observed, an exception had to be made.

In the case of a public-funded broadcaster, the BA said, these situations should be acknowledged by the station itself without the need of anyone’s intervention.

In its statement, the PN had the BA in its sights, accusing it of giving in to the pressure put by MLP general secretary Jason Micallef. The BA, the PN said, had wrongly given veto power to the MLP and accepted to be controlled.

The BA, the PN said, had chosen to make its own the reasons advanced by Mr Micallef, and banned the programme. Mr Micallef had wanted the programme stopped after the MLP’s deputy leader, Charles Mangion, had already accepted to take part in the programme.

The PN said it was not acceptable for the BA to accept an MLP veto and control of it. It was unacceptable that because Mr Micallef did not want a PBS discussion on Dr Sant’s speech and because he did not want Dr Mangion to take part, the BA accepted Mr Micallef’s reasons and without contesting them or considering their merits, made them its own.

The BA showed it was not sufficiently aware of what was happening during budget week when saying there had been no attempt by the opposition to avoid a discussion on the budget.

The BA was totally wrong in this. During the week there had been various occasions in which the MLP had shown it was not ready to discuss the budget and was not prepared to take questions about the budget. In the only programme in which it took part, on Xarabank, the MLP had chosen to interrupt by being noisy and by booing.

The PN went on to lay a chronology of what had happened: after the budget speech, Dr Sant did not accept journalists’ questions at a news conference; the MLP secretary general had that day also cancelled a planned interview the Opposition Leader was due to give to PBS about the budget, to be shown on the news bulletin; Dr Sant refused to discuss the budget with the Prime Minister on Net TV, the day after the budget speech, though he had been invited in September; Dr Sant refused to take part in a Business Breakfast about the budget, organised for the following Wednesday; during Xarabank on Friday, speakers and supporters of the Labour Party showed intolerance when they interrupted PN speakers; on Sunday the MLP chose not to expose Dr Sant to journalists and decided that Dr Sant would be interviewed on the MLP’s station by a Labour presenter; the MLP also avoided having a debate between the political leaders on Xarabank.

Contrary to what the BA claimed, the MLP had avoided and refused to take part in discussions about the budget. The BA, the PN said, was not consistent. On previous occasions when someone had refused to take part, the BA had not done anything. This time round, it had stopped the programme.

By giving in to Mr Micallef pressure, the PN said, the BA had failed in its legal duties.