The Labour Party chooses a smart slogan once every five years. In 2013 they marched into Castille with 'Malta Taghna Lkoll.' 'L-Aqwa Żmien' was still ringing in our ears when they returned in 2017. In 2022, they invited the country to embrace "Malta Flimkien." Now, in 2026, they parade the latest banner: 'Int Malta'. Four campaigns, four red emblems, four variations on the same patriotic theme. Across 13 years of Labour rule, the word Malta keeps appearing on every billboard. The word Gozo, somehow, never makes it into any of them. As a Gozitan reading these slogans, my reply comes naturally: 'Jien Għawdex'.

The omission feels small until you count the silences. Their fundraising marathons tell quite a different story, of course. Suddenly, Gozitans become very visible whenever the donation buckets need filling on television. Suddenly, the appeals reached across the channel with great affection and warmth. The Gozitan pensioner picks up the phone and pledges her 20 euros faithfully. The Gozitan farmer sends in his contribution without a second thought about geography. Yet when the campaign banners go up across the islands the next spring, Gozo disappears from the vocabulary again. We exist when we give and vanish when we ask.

Look honestly at what 13 years of Labour government delivered to this island. Gozo Indoor Sports & Aquatic Pavilion arrived years behind schedule and well over budget. Roughly €10 million was the original price tag for a useful regional facility. The ultimate cost climbed beyond €20 million by the time the doors opened. Anyone running a private business with that level of overrun would face serious consequences from the board. In government, however, doubling the cost seems to qualify as an achievement worth celebrating publicly. They cut the ribbon, took the celebration photos, and considered the matter quietly closed.

Then comes the long, painful saga of the fast ferry service between the islands. Gozitans waited roughly five years longer than necessary for this basic transport link to operate. The delay had nothing to do with maritime engineering or European regulation, or technical complexity. The government wanted to award the lucrative concession to one of its own core supporters first. When that scheme collapsed under public scrutiny, only then did serious operators receive the green light. Five years of commuter misery served the interests of party faithful rather than ordinary working Gozitans. After all, the government should have been more innovative and introduced the fast ferry for catamarans, taking also vehicles to relieve Cirkewwa vehicle congestion. Anyone who values the livelihood of Gozitans should remember that delay clearly at the ballot box.

Every Labour minister who took office in 2013 inherited an inter-island transport system already in full working order. The Ċirkewwa terminal stood ready for upgrading and modernisation under any competent administration. The Mġarr terminal needed steady investment and intelligent expansion to match the growing demand. Successive Labour transport ministers walked past these obvious priorities for over a decade. The terminals today still bear the marks of that benign neglect at every corner. Passengers queue, with no shelter from the rain or sun, and shuffle through facilities essentially unchanged since 2013. Meanwhile, the same government finds endless millions to splash on vanity projects elsewhere on the main island.

The Gozo Channel fleet itself tells the same tired story of indifference toward Gozitan commuters. The vessels Malita, Ta' Pinu, and the Gaudos formed a reliable backbone of the service for years. None of these vessels received the level of renewal investment one would reasonably expect. Then arrived the now infamous Nikolaos, a 33-year-old Greek ferry pressed into emergency service. Taxpayers pay a daily charter fee of around €20,000 for this floating relic. The vessel falls short of the basic accessibility standards required by any modern transport authority. Owing to its advanced age, regulators licensed the Nikolaos for only half its passenger capacity. We pay full price for half a ship from another country's retired fleet. The minister responsible smiled at the cameras and called this a workable temporary solution.

The promised helicopter service between Malta and Gozo remains exactly where it began years ago. The drawing boards in some Valletta offices gather dust while announcements come and go. Each election cycle produces another colourful brochure showing aircraft that nobody ever boards. Marsalforn breakwater follows the identical pattern of perpetual study and perpetual postponement. Fishers and residents have heard the promise repeated through three consecutive Labour electoral campaigns. The waves keep eroding the foreshore while the consultancy reports keep accumulating in ministerial drawers. Patience has long since turned into something closer to weary, resigned anger across the island.

The hospital story deserves a paragraph entirely of its own in this national accounting. Labour governments promised Gozitans a properly modern hospital fit for a 21st century population. The Vitals Global Healthcare scandal stands as one of the most serious public failures of recent memory. Courts later annulled the entire deal as fraudulent and contrary to the public interest. Years of work, hundreds of millions of euros, and not a single new bed for our community. Gozitans still travel to Mater Dei for isolated and complicated procedures that any decent regional hospital would handle. It is worth admitting the progress achieved in facilitating treatment in Gozo, but the promise of dignified local healthcare remains undelivered after thirteen full years of the Labour government.

Consider the political arithmetic of all this neglect for one quiet moment of reflection. Three full members of the Labour cabinet currently come from the Gozitan electoral district. Every single Tuesday morning, three Gozitan ministers of state sit at the highest table of government. Three voices supposedly carry our concerns into the cabinet, which makes proper decisions. Yet the Marsalforn breakwater drifts, the hospital fails, the helicopter never flies, and the Nikolaos still sails. Victoria is still without adequate parking facilities and clogged daily with traffic proceeding towards the north. One genuinely wonders what these ministers actually argue for behind closed doors. Either their colleagues ignore them completely, or they themselves have stopped pressing the case. Neither possibility reflects well on the representation Gozitans receive in exchange for their loyal votes.

So when the new red banners blossom along our roads with the slogan "Int Malta," forgive my muted enthusiasm at the message. The slogan tells me exactly what successive Labour campaigns have always told this island. 'You are Malta' if you live in Sliema, Birkirkara, Marsa, or Żejtun on the mainland. They target you for fundraising during the marathon, but forget you after it. You receive an aged Greek ferry, a phantom helicopter, a phantom hospital, and a permanent breakwater consultation. Thirteen years of Labour stewardship reduced our expectations, our infrastructure, and our political weight considerably. The slogan reads "Int Malta" across every billboard from Cirkewwa to Marsaxlokk. My honest, unembarrassed reply on behalf of this neglected island remains the same: 'Jien Għawdex'.