The more time that passes, the more the Nationalist Party seems to be moving further to the left of the political spectrum. And it is doing so for the wrong reasons.
The recent doubling of the list of medical conditions for which medication will be made available free of charge is the latest of measures taken by the government to add to the ever-growing list of freebies – a decision that will only serve to enhance the mentality that the state should provide for everything you need.
It is unfortunately the wrong mindset – one that was born a long time ago when, under Labour administrations, social services were introduced and gradually expanded. Successive Nationalist governments did not pull away from the concept; if anything, they increased the dose.
Today, many people have grown accustomed to the idea that everything comes free, be it education, health and whatnot. They appreciate little, take it all for granted, and then are the first to complain and grumble when something goes awry.
Such an attitude makes people lazy, kills their initiative and increases the expectations that everything should be provided free of charge. It is a frame of mind that encourages people to look towards the state in any eventuality, rather than work to find a solution. It is a curse that has been passed on from generation to generation.
The thing is – and this is something few people realise – that these services are free for those who receive them, but come at a cost to others. The taxpayers, that is.
Social services are thought to be vote-catchers, and this is perhaps why the government at this point in time chose to go down this road. Its intention is to appease the public when it is seeking to make amends and build bridges.
Frankly, I do not think it will work. Labour voters will not vote PN because they are getting free medicine. The Labour Party will not criticise the move, because it is a popular one, and the Labour Party will not touch anything that could jeopardise its popularity.
What is worrying is the amount of money that this exercise will cost. The government has not said how much it will spend but it is easy to understand that the provision of medication for 79 conditions – as against the previous 38 – will be quite expensive. I do hope that someone, somewhere, knows what the bottom line is.
That the announcement came like a bolt out of the blue – some doctors were shocked when news filtered down to them – leads me to believe that it was a hastily concocted decision aimed solely at providing some good news in a moment of difficulty for the government, and that the consequences of this move were not considered or, if they were, have been put aside for the time being. What we are giving today, somebody else will pay for later, is what comes to mind.
What is even stranger is that in the past weeks we have had news of a €40 million cut from the budget that was announced for 2012. So, on the one hand, we have the government going for a reduction in expenses, which has given the Labour Party plenty to say, and on the other hand we have this free medicine exercise which is possibly costlier than the €40 million cut.
To me, it is quite contradictory.
This brings me to another angle of the social services sector, and this is the rampant abuse there is in the system.
It could be three days of sick leave, used to paint someone’s house or spring clean yours, or unemployment benefit, when one is earning thousands in the black economy; it could be single mothers living with a partner but registering their child’s father as “unknown”, or disability benefits for people who can still work – whatever it is, social services have opened the way to so much abuse that it has become a plague.
Sometimes, someone is caught and brought to book, but this is just like catching a youngster with a few grammes of cocaine when the illegal drug market is flourishing. I am sure that, if the government was happy with the way abuse in the social services is being tackled, we would have had the minister calling up a press conference to tell us all about it in front of the cameras.
Social services have made life easier for those who are unwilling to contribute to society; and the fact is that, apart from not contributing, these people have become a burden on the rest of us.
I am sure that social services are the reason why people technically remain below the poverty line; they are too lazy to hold a regular job and have no incentive to do so if what they receive is enough to get by on – if it is added to what they get on the side, which remains undeclared. I use the word “technically” on purpose because in many instances I find it hard to believe that these people are really poor.
There’s another thing. Once a freebie has been introduced, it is impossible to take it back, and therefore what starts as a burden for us becomes a burden for future generations too.
Just remember how the unions reacted when, a few years ago, the government – after increasing the number of public and national holidays to 14 (and raising the number of days of vacation leave from 20 to 24) in 1987 – decided that holidays falling on weekends should no longer be compensated for with extra days of vacation.
Thankfully, the government held on to the decision taken. But, in another instance, it first withdrew children’s allowance to certain sectors of society and then, having seen the backlash, reintroduced the system.
Alfred Sant used to dream of making Malta a Switzerland in the Mediterranean. But, apart from the wrongful political considerations, there are many other reasons why we can never be like the Swiss. One of them is our ingrained mentality of wanting everything for free; we want the state to hold our hand from the womb to the tomb and we do our best to work less and less while expecting our salaries to go up.
Recently, in a referendum, two-thirds of the Swiss voted against a rise in the minimum paid yearly vacation leave from four to six weeks (from 20 to 30 working days). I repeat, they voted against having more holidays. The idea, not surprisingly, came from a trade union, but it was rejected in the referendum for fear that it would have had a negative effect on the economy and would have increased labour costs.
I have no doubt that, were we to hold a similar referendum here, most of us would selfishly vote in favour – never mind that the economy would collapse.
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