Prime Minister Robert Abela told supporters on Sunday morning that while the Budget announced a couple of weeks ago was the “best ever”, next year’s “will be even better.”

Abela spoke at a short Labour Party activity in Ghaxaq on Sunday, with his speech revolving around the Budget announced by Finance Minister Clyde Caruana two weeks ago.

He leafed through the Budget’s main measures, starting first with the increase in pensions – anecdotally saying that he had just come from another activity where pensioners told him “keep giving us, so we keep spending.”

He continued that today’s pensions are higher than the salaries in the time of Nationalist governments, and that this year’s increases alone were worth some €100 million.

Another €37 million, he said, had been dedicated to fixing the anomaly created by a PN government in 2006 which created “two categories of pensioners”: those born before 1962 and those born after.

“They had a problem with the sustainability of pensions, so instead of solving that one problem they created two,” Abela said.

Moving onto students, Abela said that “others” had advised the government to stop stipends – a reference to a suggestion by academic Andrew Azzopardi – but the government had instead answered by increasing them by 15%, which leaves an additional €6 million in students’ pockets.

The government had also increased the allowance for Gozitan students living in Malta to €280 per month, which is worth around €10,000 over four years.

“The Budget is a show of our faith, of our principles.  We believe that the backbone of our country is the family,” he said, saying that Maltese families is what makes Malta’s economy unique.

He said that one need not look far to see different, struggling economies: in Germany, he said, the Finance Minister is saying that “everything will be cut” next year, in the UK the Chancellor was crying in Parliament because she had to cut disability benefits, and in France they cannot put together a government to pass a Budget.

“What’s the main difference? The strength in our families, and because as a government, we were always ready to take on the challenges ourselves and not burden families with them,” Abela said, referring to the Covid Wage Supplement and energy supplement as one such example

He said that families had been strengthened by the Budget in an unprecedented manner.

A middle-class family with a combined income of €60,000 which has two children “will not pay a cent in income tax for 25 years,” Abela said – equivalent of €275,000 which would have been paid in taxes, but which will instead remain in families’ pockets.

“When Clyde [Caruana] came to speak to me about this proposal, I asked him whether he understood the impact of it, and he said he did, he had worked it out, and he was ready to sustain it,” Abela said.

The Nationalist Party, Abela said, had tried to copy Caruana – but in doing so forgot about 30,000 families who had one child.  “If it was for the PN, those 30,000 families would not benefit from a tax cut like this,” Abela said.

“The Opposition is less ambitious than us as a government,” he said.

“Others let Budget day pass and then start issuing bills; we let the Budget pass and started to issue cheques,” Abela said, referring to the tax refund cheques which started being issued last week.

He said that this scheme, started by Joseph Muscat’s administration, initially had €11 million allocated to it, but this year is of €28 million.  €185 million in tax refunds have been given to all categories of workers since the scheme started.

“This is the importance of a strong and resilient economy which is attractive to investment,” Abela said.

He continued that others were trying to shift attention away from the Budget by propagating “the biggest lie they’ve ever said”: that Steward Healthcare made off with €400 million from the hospitals deal.

This is not true, Abela said. “The highest arbitration tribunal certified, black on white, that everything that the PN said from 2023 onwards is a lie.  For every cent we paid, we got a justified service,” Abela said.

“They even tried to stop me talking about the Budget.  They can try, but they cannot stop us. They cannot stop the effects of this Budget in January,” Abela said.

He said that while others speak negatively, the government replies by giving Manoel Island and White Rocks back to the people through two environmental projects the scale of which this country has never seen.

“Next year’s Budget will be even better,” Abela pledged, “because our heart is with students, families, parents, pensioners, and businesses.

He said that a Labour Party government is a guarantee that the Maltese and Gozitan people will keep moving forward with prosperity.