Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi received nothing short of a hero’s welcome in Sliema yesterday afternoon as he took the stage on Dingli Street for the party’s third mass meeting of the electoral campaign.
The PN faithful turned out in their thousands yesterday afternoon, thronging the Sliema thoroughfare, and Dr Gonzi stoked their enthusiasm to a near fever pitch - needing to pause several times throughout his address to wait for chanting and cheering to subside.
“8 March draws closer every day,” Dr Gonzi told the roaring crowd. “I stand before you today with both a proven track record and an electoral programme with 353 concrete proposals in hand.”
Nothing, he observed, could be taken for granted and that while an electoral victory was desired, it was not guaranteed. “Every day is precious,” Dr Gonzi warned, “and we need to go after each and every vote.”
Dr Gonzi called on the crowd to be “ambassadors” for the Nationalist Party by speaking with people from all walks of life to explain the merits of the party’s policies so as to persuade all voters that “together, we can continue to change the country for the better”.
On 1 May 2004, Dr Gonzi said, Malta began its “EU adventure”. “Four years later we have won respect for Malta around the EU table, and have also won EUR855 million in EU funding for projects to be implemented over the next legislature.” The country, Dr Gonzi said, was also much better off today than it was four years ago when he assumed the helm of the country.
“While others have criticised, we have worked,” he remarked before going into a long lost of accomplishments registered over the last four years. The country’s economic growth rate, at over four per cent, was well above the EU average, while the country had just seen a record year in tourism.
Malta currently has the highest number of gainfully occupied on the books in history, while no fewer than 20,000 new jobs have been created over the last four years.
Over the last four years Malts has had the highest ever level of home grown and foreign direct investment, while the public deficit was also at an all-time low – enabling the country to forecast an “ambitious goal” of achieving a budget surplus by 2010.
All this and more, he said, was achieved before a backdrop of two years of consecutive income tax cuts, while a third year was envisaged as part of the PN’s economic stimulus package.
Moreover, he said, children’s allowances had been increased, as have pensions, 30,000 families had been assisted with the electricity surcharge, new schools and the new Mater Dei hospital have been opened and record amounts have been invested in the environment.
“We come before you with facts in hand, so you will be able to judge on actions and not words,” Dr Gonzi said. The PN’s policies, he said, get results because they are both credible and sustainable.
How can the MLP portray itself as credible, Dr Gonzi asked, when it claims the country is stagnating, while at the same time we have had the economic growth rates we have seen over the last four years?” The same also went for tourism, where the MLP did not believe the sector could continue to grow.
In terms of education, Dr Gonzi added, the MLP erroneously claims children are falling behind while it is proposing a reception class that would see each and every child being left behind. On corruption, Dr Gonzi said, the MLP “had the face” to make accusation after accusation but did not have the gumption to see the allegations through to reporting them to the police commissioner or the relevant authorities.
The MLP, he said, was in a state of panic over the hollowness of its policies. “Every day the MP goes back to the drawing board and starts again, insisting on misprints and corrections on everything it says.”
Over the last years, he said, the only advice from the MLP was that of devaluing the Maltese lira by 10 per cent, Dr Gonzi said, adding such a move would have made both the lira and the country “repeat classes”.
On the environment, Dr Gonzi referred to the work already done, as well as the work ahead, with EUR300 million in EU funding being allocated to the sector. Development, he said, had to happen but in a sustainable manner – one of the main pillars of the reform of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, which would be placed under the responsibility of the prime minister as per the PN’s electoral proposal.
The MLP, Dr Gonzi said, was in panic mode after realising the failings of its reception class proposal, while its attempt to justify the idea by comparing it with the British system had also fallen through.
The MLP’s claims that MATSEC resits would be held in November and that the government had intended closing junior lyceums were described as “lies”.
“The MLP,” he said, “is simply not credible when it comes to education, where its track record is scandalous and shameful. The PN’s policy toward education is to leave no child behind. When it comes to children, our most precious resource, there can be no political colours.”
Addressing students, Dr Gonzi said, the next PN legislature would not retain stipends but also raise them. He also called on then to remain calm in the face of repeated insults from the MLP in the wake of the recent university debate.
Dr Gonzi challenged the MLP to publish its collective agreement with Super One workers who were being paid overtime rates of one hour and six minutes per overtime hour – despite the party’s very different political arguments on the issue.