One of the major changes in the proposed new statute is that the PN will go back to having a single deputy leader. Why make this change and what will be the remit of the deputy leader - will it be party or parliamentary affairs?

You could technically call it a mix of both. We felt that the party in this day and age can work with one deputy leader, as we used to do in the past. This is obviously no reflection on the present two deputy leaders who are working very hard within the party. My gratitude goes to both Robert Arrigo and David Agius. This new provision will not come into effect before the next general election, as then in any case one would trigger an election for deputy leaders after that phase. 

We defined the deputy leader role in very wide terms, as the person who would assume all the roles of the leader in his absence, and helps in the party’s political activities and anything further that the leader would delegate to him or her. So in a sense the main focus is on the party work.

The party is going to have a redefined role for secretary general, while also having a President of Political Research and another for Social Dialogue and Outreach. Can you provide more details as to what their roles will entail? 

In terms of the secretary general, the whole purpose of the way it has been written is to combine all functions ranging from responsibility for our mechanism to be election-ready, whenever that happens, to be the person in charge of conducting campaigns on behalf of the party, to be the person responsible for coordinating the voluntary setup within the party, and also to be responsible for the party's information and media office.

As for the two new roles, the whole idea is that we want to place more emphasis on those two aspects of doing political work, be it social dialogue which is a form of outreach, and the other which we are calling for political research - which can also be called the strategic wing of the party - will be set up to have up to date information on different issues in order to ensure that we are developing policy on different sectors based on what society needs. 

The whole purpose is to make the party more prepared and equipped for society's and people's needs today.

The two new roles will respond to and work with the secretary general.

One major issue the PN has had is the ability to reach out to the majority of voters. How do you envisage that these proposed changes in the statute and structure will help the party in that regard?

First and foremost through the two functions we already mentioned, but also through so much more political work that we need to do together. The fact that we are placing a strong emphasis on the outreach element of the party means that the PN is very conscious that it cannot simply conduct policy within its own structures, even if more than ever we are following a bottom-up approach which already helps in reflecting the people's needs and what they call for.

It is not a question of us writing up policies and passing them on to the grassroots, but is the other way around. First going to our members and people outside the party, seeing what they would like to tell us and then formulating policy on the basis of their feedback.

We are also emphasising outreach. This would mean seeing how civil society is composed nowadays, and I use the term civil society in the widest term possible to include organisations active on rule of law issues, good governance, those dedicated to particular interests, the environment, dedicated to hobbies, and others. It is a question of being out there and meeting them.

Looking at how we have been formulating policy over the past months, the party leader was engaging in one meeting after another with different segments of society, be it the nursing sector, real estate, financial services and others. Now we will do even more of this.

This new statute also ties in with other initiatives such as the setting up of clusters, where we have identified 14 policy areas (the 14 clusters include of MPs, party members, and other stakeholders who will work to come up with policy recommendations for the future of Malta and Gozo).

Through the new party structure, will there be more of an emphasis on the social media aspect in terms of conveying its message to the public, or will it also retain the idea of street leaders?

We are certainly going to give a lot of importance to social media. Of course you can never quite give up any form of communication and the party has its own media structure, its own newspapers, television and radio stations.

We made a very bold announcement that we do not think political parties should own broadcasting stations any longer. But obviously we cannot undergo, what was called in the past, unilateral disarmament. This has to be part of a package agreed at national level which would need to guarantee in the most absolute terms that public service broadcasting is really there for all, and is really giving access not only to political parties, but to all those elements in society that have a message to convey. That is a reform that we will be pushing for.

How can we not make far more use of social media? However we are at a disadvantage here as making use of it requires massive investment, and one needs to have lots of money to put it mildly. The party doesn't exactly have the same kind of financial war chest which the Labour Party, in one way or another, has built over the years. But we will do our utmost.

One of the main priorities in the statute is the environment. This pledge has been made by countless PL and PN administrations, yet time and time again it seems that this is not the case. How can the people trust the PN when it says that the environment is a priority?

I think we need to look at our track record, and it is not flawless, but certainly we have been far more conscious of the environment and protecting it when we were in office than Labour. 

For starters it was the PN that set up the structures meant to safeguard the environment. A functioning Planning Authority for starters. I am told that there were people who simply did not forgive us because the Planning Authority was far too strict at the time.

When we merged planning with the environment we did it to ensure that the environmental dimension in decision making would be given due weight. The present government simply separated the two again and made the environment authority, which exists on paper and hardly is effective in producing proper results.

Is our track record flawless? Of course it is not, but at the end of the day one needs to weigh the track record of both parties and see which one was more consciously determined to safeguard the environment. Do we need to do far more when re-elected to office? Of course we do, and again that will be done together with the NGOs that work in this sector together with people who care for the environment to produce results which fit into the model of sustainable development.