A report commissioned by the government back in April 2013 and drawn up and presented by the Ombudsman, the Auditor General and the Electoral Commissioner in December of that same year, has recommended a full time Parliament. 

This is bound to be at once revolutionary and politically divisive.

Revolutionary in that the country now has, for the first time, a set of thorough, actionable and fully costed recommendations on rendering the job of a member of the House of Representatives a full time endeavour as the country deserves.

On the other hand, it is bound to be politically divisive not in terms of how it will be perceived by the public but, rather, how it will be taken on board by the country's political class - by serving Members of Parliament who have lucrative day jobs and who could, in the future, be faced with a choice between serving the country or sticking to their profession outside the hallowed halls of Parliament.

The government, most governments for that matter, are in the habit of keeping major policies such as that recommended by the tripartite report under wraps until the time is ripe to launch them for public consumption.  This could very well be the reason why a report of such magnitude has been kept under lock and key by the government for over a full year, at least until this newspaper had a chance to survey its contents this week.

More likely, however, is the fact that both parties in Parliament - specifically the Labour Party in government in this case - are bound to face a maelstrom once its contents come up for debate within their respective parliamentary groups.

Both parties' parliamentary groups are heavy with MPs who are among the highest earners in the country - lawyers, doctors and other professionals who tend to earn well upward of the €59,000 that is being recommended as remuneration for full time parliamentarians.

These will undoubtedly be faced with a difficult choice of calling it a day in politics in favour of their day jobs, or of continuing to serve the country albeit with a reduced overall income. Both parties will stand to lose some of their most seasoned politicians and some of their best minds. As such, it is of little wonder that the report has been kept secret.

And with the proposals being subject to parliamentary approval, it will be interesting how the parties' leaders will handle such a delicate situation and how an eventual debate in Parliament will pan out.

For example, will they allow their MPs a free vote on the proposed radical reform of the workings of Parliament, or will they be instructed to toe the party line on this one despite what their own personal volitions may be?

A full time Parliament with properly remunerated members is undoubtedly in the national interest, but there is something a little disingenuous about the whole issue, which could very well be another reason why the report has not been made officially public.

And that is the fact that the Labour Party had had a field day of the likes rarely seen in politics over the whole honoraria issue and the '€500 a week raise' given to Cabinet members back in early 2008 just after that year's general election.

The institution of the honoraria for Cabinet members back in 2008 after the Nationalist Party was narrowly re-elected was not a travesty; it was a case of an injustice having been corrected. What is a travesty is that the practice was brought to a sudden halt following the Opposition of the time's cries of scandal.  As such, this current Cabinet is not receiving the full wage it is entitled to receive.

The current state of affairs in which members of Cabinet - ministers and parliamentary secretaries - are not paid for their work as Members of Parliament is far more outrageous than the outrage that the Labour Party and its exponents had feigned when the issue was brought to the fore. We say 'feigned' because this newspaper had proved in the past beyond any doubt that the Labour Party had known full well of the honoraria issue well before it had been made public.

It should be pointed out that while the Gonzi administration's Cabinet at the time had immediately instituted the honoraria for ministers - and rightly so, as this newspaper has argued in the past - the recommendations of the report that we have published in today's issue will not become active until an agreement across the board is reached and not until the advent of the next legislature, which will begin in 2018.

But there is more than a tinge of hypocrisy to this whole affair following the fire and brimstone invoked by the then Labour Party in Opposition when the honoraria for Cabinet members had been made public.

In actual fact, if the report's recommendations are to be implemented, the next Prime Minister elected in 2018 will be earning €95,000 a year while Lawrence Gonzi as Prime Minister earned his regular wage of approximately €50,000 (125 per cent of the civil service's scale 1 salary) plus his parliamentary honoraria of €21,000 - some €72,000 all told.

The recommendations for a new and improved pay scale for politicians and the prospect of a full time Parliament are entirely welcome but the underlying hypocrisy of the situation is not.