As Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil has rightly pointed out in his excellent reply to the budget speech, this usually important exercise has been rendered irrelevant. Far more serious issues are now at stake. The country is in a state of political and security meltdown. The Gunfight at the OK Corral has shattered the sense of passiveness and forgiveness of the last couple of years.

But even if another Minister has stolen the limelight and people are no longer remotely interested in the Finance Minister's speech, we still had to endure Edward Scicluna's never-ending story and it would maybe also deserve a little bit of our attention.

One can hope, if not expect, that a speech of four hours is exhaustive of the subject, not of the listeners. No such luck with Minister Scicluna's budget speech. What really matters gets no mention and you have either to dig into the detail or just wait for the surprises the government will spring on us in the months to come.

The poor are always with us

Like some 1930s Bolshevik tract, Labour's electoral programme for the years 2013-2018 proudly announced that a Labour government would eradicate poverty from its roots. No ifs or buts. Where are we at now, almost two years later? Remember how the Nationalist government used to be roundly criticised because a fifth of the population was at risk of poverty?

Two years of Labour and poverty levels in Malta are not even stable, let alone eradicated. In Labour's first year, the numbers of those in poverty or at risk of poverty shot up to a quarter of the population. And to keep up with the Party's reputation for sliding deadlines, a green paper (the only thing Labour has to show for its work in the area) states that poverty will take 12 years to eradicate rather than the previously mentioned five.

The elderly and the Caritas basket

In 2012, when Church NGO Caritas published a report that was drawn up with the genuine intention of highlighting the financial pressure those in the lower income bracket of society have to face, it was turned into political cannot fodder by Labour in Opposition.

Labour's electoral programme also promised our elderly that the minimum pension would rise to 60 per cent from the present 45 per cent of the national average wage. This is also in line with the 'at risk of poverty' issue.

How has two years of Labour changed the situation? The pension increase is still at working committee stage, we are told. As the with the poverty strategy, the adequate pensions strategy is itself off-track and better pensions are not in sight yet. The Caritas report had found that a "basket" of basic and essential items consumed in a week by the elderly cost around €50. For the same stuff, only two years later, the bill would now come to more than €80.

Fifty-eight cents for a living wage

Prior to the election, Labour promised almost everything to everybody. Voting labour was presented as tantamount to living happily ever after. The concept of a living wage, a decent wage, was floated to capture the imagination of all those who were in employment but were still finding it difficult to make ends meet. It fuelled anger against measly increases such as the € 1.16 per week. Little did it matter that the average Cola increase in the previous years had amounted to a little less than €4 per week. Little did it matter that the average wage in recent years had gone up by about €480. Labour took the people to the streets, their favourite playing field.

Two years down the line and the cost of living adjustment was set at 58¢ a week. That is the second record - after the length of the Minister's speech: never since the years of the 1980s' wage-freeze has an adjustment for the cost of living been so low. This will be especially hard on those who are dependent on social benefits or a pension. But it will also be hard for our lower middle class families. They did not benefit from the income tax cuts and the average wage increase has plummeted from the €480 per annum in recent years to €96 in Labour's first year in office.

With the 58¢ increase and the one-off €35 they cannot plan to do great things. It will not even compensate for the increase in the cost of car licences and insurance which, in typical New Labour fashion, we have not been told by how much they will be hiked. Neither will it make good for the increased cost of gas cylinders, Matsec examination fees for their children and a good number of indirect taxation measures. The lower middle classes will certainly not be better off as a result of this budget.

The fine distinction between defrauding the system and manipulating it

Much is being made of the "fight" against benefit fraud, as if this has not being going on for years without any of the fanfare and without vulnerable people being tarnished and subjected to a collective punishment.

The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice has recently issued a statement saying that there is no need to label people who rely on social benefits as lazy fraudsters, as benefit fraud amounts to only two per cent of public spending on benefits and therefore the absolute majority of beneficiaries are only taking what is theirs by right.  

Let's put things further into perspective: it seems that the two per cent work the system from the wrong side of the law. The national expense on hundreds of Taghna Lkoll appointments is certainly higher than the €3 million a year on benefit fraud. Of course, they are both wrong but what moral authority does this government carry in pontificating against abuse? Members of parliament and election candidates who have been found guilty of serious wrongdoing, have not been punished but rather embraced and promoted.. The only thing the champagne socialist members of government and hangers-on have done is manipulate the rules to their benefit.

Suffice it to say that nowadays Labour backbenchers are raking in so much money from government posts that in certain cases they exceed the income of members of Cabinet. Luciano Busuttil is deserving of a special mention here: not only does he make three tidy sums as MP and chair of the Sports Council and of Parliament's Committee on Foreign and European Affairs, he is also lawyer to Bormla Local Council and, at the same time, to a company who submitted a tender to the council. Shame on who?