The Nationalist Party has issued its electoral programme for the March election. Qabza ohra ta’ kwalita (Another quality leap) is a document that encompasses no less than 125 proposals aimed at further improving our quality of life for the years to come. This electoral programme is the result of a series of discussions and meetings held with a wide variety of people. It was compiled by Simon Busuttil and presented to the PN Executive Committee for discussion and eventually approved by the PN General Council. It is now widely available and you may also have already received a copy at home.

I encourage you to take some time to read through this exciting programme. It is our roadmap that ensures Malta will continue building on its successes while maintaining a strong focus on employment, health and education. Innovative and fresh ideas are not missing and are also the result of ideas put forward by the general public on the mychoice.pn website. This means that the programme is effectively what we all aspire to, what we ourselves have said that our ever changing society needs.

This ambitious programme seeks to address areas to ensure the availability of quality jobs, improved free health and education for all. As if that were not enough, a number of inspiring proposals have been included that definitely merit mentioning.

I was impressed to see that the PN electoral programme kept us women firmly in mind.  Of course all proposals affect us in some way or another but a number of them are meant to help us women achieve a better quality of life and this is to be applauded.  Some of these are free childcare of your choice for women who either opt to work or study, the introduction of sick leave to be used when a child is sick, incentives for women setting up a business, more after school clubs (3-16), tax holidays, pension account for children, widows’ pensions, increase in children’s allowances, public companies and entities to have a 40 per cent female representation on boards with a pledge to encourage private companies to do the same by 2020, cancer screening programmes and assisted fertility programmes.

Of course the main focus is to encourage women to return to work while maintaining a healthy work-family balance. As a working mother I know only too well the challenges involved in returning to work after childbirth and the juggling involved to maintain a career and to fulfil your responsibilities as a mother and homemaker. Impossible it is not, but it was certainly more difficult in my time when my children were younger. Increased awareness that it is essential to provide support to working mothers who are desperately needed at the helm of our economy, has meant a drive towards facilitating their return to the workplace.  Never have we had it so good, and with an impressive number of female graduates expected every year, it is gratifying to see that with these proposals these young graduates need not make the regrettable choice our mothers had to make in the past of having to choose between a career and a family.   A voluntary choice to do so I accept and respect, but to have such a situation imposed on you is simply not acceptable.

The Nationalist Party empathises with the challenges of modern day families and this electoral manifesto is a testimonial to this.  The document is evidence enough that the party is in touch with our needs and is prepared to inject energy, dynamics and finances to ensure a better quality of life for us all.  The full programme can be downloaded http://www.mychoice.pn/MyFuture/ElectoralProgram/Overview?gclid=CIiqyIaKnLUCFYJP3godvGkAMA

It is most definitely worth a read!

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Ms Galea is a PN candidate for the 4th and 6th districts