Amidst all the votes which took place in Parliament on Monday were final votes on two Nationalist Party motions which were filed earlier in the year.

Both of these motions – one of which concerned Malta’s implementation of the EU’s work-life balance directive and the other concerned the timeframe when people are eligible for compensation for utility bills overcharging – were struck down by the government.

This is not surprising: both motions had been subject to votes earlier in the year, and Monday’s vote was merely a formality after the PN requested a division on both.

It is also unsurprising because at a core level, the government backing an opposition motion simply doesn’t happen in Maltese politics.

Perhaps this is because backing an Opposition amendment to a bill or legal notice implemented by the government would make the party in power appear weak, and would raise questions as to why the law was initially written as it was.

But that’s not theoretically how things should work: politicians are elected into power on the basis that they will do what is best for the country as a whole.

No political party on the planet will ever have the perfect answer for every problem.  Perhaps one party may introduce a law, and the party in opposition has a valid contribution on how to improve it after that law has been implemented.

Why shouldn’t that contribution be heeded?

The two motions which the government shot down on Monday were both valid ones which, if implemented, would have had a better impact on the people than what is currently in place.

The motion on the work-life balance directive put forward by the PN stated that the government should pay for all parental and caregiver leave at the average wage rate, not at the sick leave rate; paternity leave should be increased from 10 to 15 days beginning in January 2024, with the government covering the entire cost;  Parental leave should be paid at the rate of the average wage and not be transferable; the average wage for the five days of caregiver leave; and the self-employed to receive the same rate of parental, paternity, and caregiver leave as employees do; and the law will be available to new parents on August 1, 2019, with a retroactive effect.

The second motion concerns a legal notice implemented by the government to address an “anomaly” in the way utility bills are calculated by ARMS.  This came after a court ruled that ARMS had been overcharging two customers who filed a court case against it, setting a precedent for other cases.

The government had proposed that the adjustment to cover for the anomaly will only date from January 2022, but the PN in its motion argued that the compensation should be backdated to January 2014 instead – when the billing system in question had been introduced.

In both instances, it is the people who stand to gain from these changes.  The original government changes were good in the sense that they introduced new rights for workers in the first instance, and provided compensation for overcharging in the second instance.

But they could have gone further.

It’s a pity that motions which would have seen them go further and help more people were shot down, seemingly just because they were proposed by the PN.