As if combining work and family were easy

Anyone remembers Mgr Joseph Mercieca? Just about perhaps. Which is telling considering that the man led the Maltese Church for close to three decades.

One of Mgr Mercieca’s pet topics was working mothers. Now, he never really complained about the tendency but even he knew a thing or two about incentives. One way of penalising this category of woman who pays tax, national insurance and probably still has as much housework as her stay-at-home counterpart was to suggest paying an allowance to the mother who chose to stay at home. Not that the latter do not provide a service but paying for that should be the direct beneficiary who has an income: the husband. Not society at large.

Much of the same was on offer on a recent seminar, the only difference that the previous propositions are now couched as questions (translation mine):

[Archbishop Paul Cremona] queried how free is the choice of a woman to work and if, perhaps, it is not time that housewives are compensated by the Government for the work they do. He explained that it should be stated that housework gives its own contribution.

“It was said that the number of Maltese women who work is 37%. This means that 63% decided to stay at home and we cannot, if we’re talking about family and work and the relationship between them, not to remember these 63% like they never existed. We have to say: the choice that’s being made — which is free and I will not interfere. Is it free when no one is probably thinking of the person who, initially had a career, work which with great sacrifice she gave up because that’s what she decided? But then shouldn’t we also recognise that that’s a contribution that woman is giving? Meaning that if you stay at home to take care of your family, you will have no remuneration, if you go to work you’ll have this money. We pose it as a question”.

Check out the views of Maria Camilleri, headmistress and Labour MEP candidate, on longer school hours. She seems to have been the only one who had anything sensible to say (certainly not Anton Gouder and whatever he meant to say about school tuck shops).

Out of wedlock

Whoever runs the Times webpage is a smart guy. The news story was headlined “30% of births in 2006 were outside wedlock” and he put a picture of a dictionary page opened on the page for “divorce” with a wedding ring about it. The report was about a presentation made by Dr Angela Abela to Parliament’s Committee on Social Affairs and nobody on that committee asked the billion dollar question: “how many of those births were to couples who would have wanted to be married but are not allowed to because they’re previously married to other people?”.

Instead we got more of the same:

The members of the committee agreed with Dr Abela on the need for education aimed at healthy relationships. Dr Abela said such education should start in schools. Indeed, she said, research indicated that young people wanted to learn more on how to start, maintain, or end a relationship. Many young people, she said, drank heavily to overcome their fear of starting a relationship.

The committee members need some education to get over stating the obvious. Here’s more:

Dr Abela expressed concern over a growing number of reports of casual sex which stemmed from excessive drinking.

And it had also been found that 21% of young people made dates with persons then came across on the Internet.

While failing to see what’s the big deal about people making dates with persons they meet online here’s another question the committee could have asked: is “casual sex” synonymous with “unprotected sex”?

Thankfully, sometimes sensible things are said:

Dr Abela underlined the need for a proper work-family balance. Mothers needed to be given enough time to raise their children, with their fathers. This showed the need for more family-friendly measures, not least in the private sector, which was lagging the public sector in this area.

She noted that while the European average of maternity leave is 23 weeks, in Malta it was 13 weeks.

The statistics is not entirely spotless. The report earlier says that 54% of Maltese mothers go back to work within six months (circa 23 weeks) of giving birth. Which makes it something of a mystery how the Maltese average eventually works out to 13 weeks.

Update: Abela clarifies:

I had pointed out to the Social Affairs Committee that the statistics regarding births outside marriage were inaccurate. In fact, births outside marriage in 2006 were 22.3 per cent and not 30 per cent. In 2007, the rate of births outside marriage went up to 24.9 per cent. I would also like to clarify that during my presentation to the committee, I referred to a study carried out by the NSO in 2005 regarding students between 13 and 16 years of age when I mentioned that 21 per cent of these youngsters fixed meetings with persons they came to know by chatting on the internet.

Malta’s way to recovery

“Where’s Gonzi’s recovery plan?” James Debono asks. By which he means a plan to splash around some government cash so that the industry which moans loudest gets some dosh. After all, min ma jibkix, ma jerdax.

I hope Gonzi has no such plan and for a very simple reason. Malta’s economic problems are nothing like those of most industrialised nations. Maltese banks may be going through a sluggish phase, representative of the international climate in general. But they certainly have none of the liquidity problems faced by other banks in other countries. The recent decision brokered by the government setting up a moratorium on capital repayments on loans taken out by hotels shows that our banks can shoulder even that cost.

Debono’s suggestions could very well turn out to be at best useless, at worst suicidal. Under “useless” I would include his proposal to “invest” in primary health and child care and in upgrading the road network — not that these are not laudable initiatives to spend money on but they are hardly the kind of “investment” that leads to recovery. Under “suicidal” I’d include the proposal for a windfall tax on banks precisely at a time when the banks’ liquidity has to be safeguarded.

Which is not to say that the government should not be doing anything. At the moment, the greatest economic risk Malta faces could very well be the fall in international demand. Like illegal immigration that’s a cause that’s beyond Malta’s borders but on this one the Maltese government does have some leverage.

What I mean is that now’s the time for the government to come out unequivocally on the side of free trade internationally, the rule of competition in the internal market and fiscal discipline within the eurozone. It is time to stand up to measures attached to “recovery plans”  launched by the larger economies attempting to draw jobs and liquidity to the country of origin.

For protectionism is back from the dead and that’s bad news from a small, export-oriented country like Malta. If we try to play at the same game we’d lose: just remember who came out looking worse for wear when the Labour government in the 1980s tried to “retaliate” against Japanese protectionist policies by some similar policies of its own.

Muscat at the General Conference

“Forget pairing,” Muscat told the government to a round of applause from the Labour delegates, supposedly in reaction to government’s procedural motion limiting votes in the House to one day of the week.

Umm, why the imperative? Who remembers pairing? It was on offer close to a year ago along with the other offer for the post of Speaker. Labour was not interested, Government moved on and Louis Galea will, in all likelihood, be presiding the House until the end of the current legislature. Only two weeks ago, Muscat was saying that there was “no chance of pairing for the time being”. “Forget pairing”? Thanks for reminding us.

That, it seems, was the highlight of Muscat’s speech to the Labour Conference. Or not. The highlight was the electricity tariffs. Well, no: the proposed St John’s museum. Or the road in Ghadira. Or maybe it was the call for Tonio Fenech to resign for having said that the government was not aware of any plans for redundancies at ST.

Maybe it was the banned play Stitching, the reminder that the Nationalist Party is not a liberal party. You’d be forgiven if you thought that, for that matter, neither the Labour Party is a liberal party. After all, during the debate leading to the “seismic changes” to the Party statute the debate was whether it’s a “democratic socialist” or a “social democratic” party. Potato, potatoe, tomato, tomatoe. Anyone spotted the “l” word there?

The transformation might well have taken place yesterday. Muscat said Labour “is the natural choice for progressive and liberals“. Er, whatever happened to the “moderates”? And if you want to hold Tonio Borg as a shining example of what a liberal isn’t it’s helpful to remind that the Foreign Minister’s understanding of “not liberal” is “not governed through a laissez-faire attitude but one where state regulation ensures the protection of those citizens in most need of protection and assistance”. Democratic socialist or social democrat, that would make Muscat even less of a liberal than Borg.

Muscat’s speech then turns to the goodies. There were promises to invest in just about anything that can soak up public money: families, children, women, the self-employed, research, alternative energy. And just in case you were wondering where the money will come from … keep wondering. Because taxes — on labour, on families, on investors — will also go down.

This country is still to learn the difference between policy and a policy objective but this time round Muscat does offer a policy which allows one to dig his teeth in: a mandatory system where those who lose their job benefit from a moratorium on payment lasting a year or two until he finds a new job. Banks often re-negotiate the terms of a loan in the case of people in that situation, after all they’re more interested in collecting their money rather than re-possessing homes. But making it mandatory is sure to raise the risk for a bank lending money to someone from the private sector. And as we know bank will always transfer the risk to the consumer.

Phew. A lengthy post and I’m not sure I’ve covered everything of the “historic” speech. Indeed, in a months time it would be truly historic if anyone managed to rattle off from memory all the points in covered.

Another deficit to address

Here is one area where Malta is not doing too well:

Malta has been ranked 83rd from 130 countries, from 76 last year when 128 countries were surveyed. Malta is last among EU countries, with Greece and Cyprus at 75 and 76. It is even behind countries such as Armenia, Suriname, Bolivia and Malawi.

In a nutshell (Part I)

Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins. And to open the “discussion” on the 2009 Financial Estimates I’ll have to refer to the Times which helpfully published a list of “winners” and “losers” in the 2009 Financial Estimates. Here it is.