Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and John Dalli Today – not a good combination at all
Two years are a long time in politics - with John Dalli Today, JPO has gone from zero to hero. And it's all been brokered by his friend Robert Musumeci, Saviour Balzan's MEPAwatch man
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando met the prime minister this afternoon and the first thing he did when he left the room was ring Malta Today to tell them what was discussed.
Malta Today then quoted Jeffrey as proudly announcing, on its website, that his divorce bill will be debated next year, when we shall also have a referendum on the matter.
I was just reading this and thinking ‘What in God’s name is Jeffrey doing? He’s about to undo all the kudos he gained through that private member’s bill by undermining the prime minister like this and liaising with John Dalli Today’ when I found a message from Jeffrey on my mobile phone. It had been sent a while earlier.
He seemed very pleased with himself and wanted to know if I am now proud of my MP again. So I sent a message back:
‘No. Actually I was thinking that it wasn’t for you to announce (anything). Whether it was deliberate on your part or not, it looks bad and makes you come across as serving the political agenda of the owners of Malta Today.’
He must have been expecting the prime minister to upbraid him, because the message I got in return said:
‘That was definitely not my intention, Lawrence. I was merely reinforcing what you said publicly. I kept my word to the letter.’
I pointed out that he had sent a message to me that was meant for the PM, and he apologised, explaining that he has a new phone.
I seem to remember Jeffrey doing something similar some months ago, being taken into the prime minister’s confidence at a private meeting and then coming out to disclose what was said.
Why does he think it is normal and acceptable behaviour to leave the prime minister’s office and ring the press?
Ordinarily, I would be on the side of those who give stories to the press. But in this case, I can’t be because I can’t stand self-serving disloyalty, no matter the quarter. If you are a government backbencher who the prime minister has deigned to favour with a private meeting, you should rise to the occasion and keep your frigging mouth shut about what was said.
As for what was said, we know only what Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando told John Dalli Today – and I have problems with that combination of personal interests right at the outset.
If we’re going to have a referendum on divorce, then the prime minister should have announced it, not Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando. And if we’re going to have a referendum on divorce, then I am dead set against it and will fight it all the way.
A referendum on divorce is an anti-democratic, hideously costly insanity that we can do without – just as we can do without the way it will derail the country for a year, to say nothing of the disastrous and far-reaching consequences if the vote is No, leading to the imposition of the will of the majority on the helpless and hapless minority, when divorce is essentially a matter of minority rights: the minority who wish to get divorced.
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Pullicino Orlando has become just another liability for the PN and our country. Well, he’s the perfect heir to the John Dalli way of doing politics and he’s also an excellent “partner in crime” for his “good friend” Robert Musumeci.
Daphne, I am a critic of JPO, but I do not see what the fuss about his breaking the news about a referendum to John Dalli Today is all about.
As a journalist, isn’t he entitled to do so?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upSlME6qus4
I must say, his performance in this video was superb. Like Gonzi, he won against Alfred Sant.
Il-parlament welled tifel iehor, kif jidher mill-agir ta’ JPO.
The reality is that neither party has any reasonably accurate idea of how a ‘divorce vote’ in parliament would affect the decision at the polls of a small number of ‘thinking voters’, the ones who will decide the outcome of the general election.
Even Joseph ‘Private Member’s Bill’ Muscat, after harping ad nauseam on the need for divorce legislation, could not bring himself to say YES to Lou Bondi’s direct question as to how he will vote. Probably not to be seen as sinning gravely on TV and thereby costing him and the PL a few, but very valuable, votes.
The reservations of the government and the Opposition are not really about divorce, but about whether a divorce vote taken now in parliament would see them in or out of office next time round.
Put simply, it is a very hot potato best passed on to the long-suffering electorate, hence a referendum.
I do not feel that divorce should be decided by a referendum. The onus of the decision which will invariably affect the future of Maltese society should be borne by parliament.
As for Muscat, he is not at all motivated by what he believes is good for the nation, but simply by what will win him votes.
Let me see if I can remember some of his short-sighted suggestions.
1. VAT on registration of cars – independently of court rulings
2. Subsidised water and electricity – independently of cost of oil
3. Business people appeasement – which judging by content of glasshouse meetings is “Tantissimo fumo ma chi lo ha visto l’arrosto”
4. GLBT – as long as it does not interfere with political slandering
5. Divorce – and free vote
6. And the award “madre di tutte le cazzate” must be bestowed on the “novel concept” living wage which will dismantle what has been painstakingly achieved since 1987.
The MPs who got elected from two districts have gone nuts. They wrongly assume that they are bigger and stronger than the political party itself.
They are bigger – they are the representatives of those who voted them in – the party is just a channel to communicate their ideals.
I cannot possibly think of a worse scenario than going to a referendum. This is nothing but washing hands and a complete waste of valuable debating time.
Why are we transferring a simple decision from our legislative body to the voters, many of whom have no idea what the difference is between separation of assets and divorce?
I can only imagine the dinosaurs having a field day with fire, brimstone and grave sin the order of the day.
Should the NO vote win the day, then it would be a great injustice to a minority. Should the YES vote have it, then the Catholic Church would be ridiculed. This is a no-win situation which should have been avoided at all costs by parliament.
Just what we needed. Another referendum to divide the nation and distract it from the real issues.
I was given the go-ahead by the Prime Minister to say what I said and I followed his instructions to the letter. I made that clear in the interview I gave Malta Today.
[Daphne – I find it very hard to believe that is the case, and if it is, then the prime minister wsa very badly advised. You are a backbencher, though I think you find it hard to bear that in mind. He is the prime minister. The announcement of something major like a referendum is his prerogative, not yours. You would both do well to remember that, for everyone’s sake. It’s not all about you, you, and you again, Jeffrey. You are now behaving like a spoiled, temperamental child who must be kept happy and distracted by all the grown-ups in the room, lest he set the house on fire in a temper tantrum.]
I just interviewed JPO on the matter for Monday’s Bondiplus with the Prime Minister. We’ll see what the latter has to say about this whole thing.
Give us a scoop.
I suppose he will say that it is acceptable practice for announcements of monumental national importance to be entrusted in the hands of dodgy backbenchers.
Jeffrey, you are riding on the divorce wagon just to regain the electorate’s trust which you lost for not being straightforward with us about the deed of lease of your land at Mistra Valley before the last general election.
You behaved irresponsibly then and you are behaving irresponsibly now, but with a far more serious issue.
The PN deserves much better.
It is clear that the PM has sent JPO on a referendum kite-flying spree.
It is clear that Kev is at a loose end.
Maybe he could get tied to the end of JPO’s kite, chincilla in tow.
Jeffrey, if you cannot hide it, show it and announce it yourself. It was damage control you were doing.
Your bill has to pass by a simple majority vote in parliament.
Your equals in the PN parliamentary group told you to announce this lost battle yourself as if it were a victory. Politicians!
In the attached video, Pullicino Orlando claims that he had the go ahead from PM Gonzi to talk to the press. If that is true, then PM Gonzi appears to be very weak and reluctant to ‘own’ the decision.
Gonzi should have announced this himself as head of this administration.
At this point, all politicians, including Gonzi and Muscat, should take a clear and unambigous position. It is useless for any politician who intends to run for office not to have a clear position or indicate where he/she stands on this issue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oAuL_kfM38&feature=sub
I don’t understand this fear on the part of government and opposition to legislate for divorce. Marriage break-ups are a dime a dozen anyway and all I hear when I’m in Malta these days is “my partner this” and “my partner” that.
As we would have said fifteen years ago, “nofs Malta pogguta” and we worry about the allegedly negative effects of divorce on marriages?
It is fallacious to assume that a referendum would be undemocratic because divorce legislation is about minority rights. That fallacy is based on the unproven allegation that a well informed mature majority will not defend the rights of minorities.
It is a matter of daily observation that genuine democracies are at the forefront of defending the rights of minorities.
[Daphne – That is in fact the case, Dr Saliba. Malta is not a genuine democracy and we cannot expect the majority to defend the rights of the minority. If it were a genuine democracy, we would not be talking about a referendum on divorce. We would have divorce. In a genuine democracy, the rights of minorities are implicit. The country is not called to vote upon them.]
Would Labour even exist if we had a well informed mature majority?
I am tempted to say NO, but I will say yes, because in that case they would in any case be an eternal minority.
We would have A labour party, i.e. a party that endorses socio-democratic ideals. We would not have THIS labour party.
Democracy means that the will of the majority must always prevail while the rights of the minorities are respected BUT not implemented. That has always been the case and that is how it should be. God forbid that humanity changes upside down all the values that we have had for thousands of years because of some brain damaged minorities.
If there was a referendum to decide whether the divorce bill should be decided by parliament or by referendum, how do your think it would go?
If there is a referendum I hope the question won’t be: ‘do you agree with divorce’, rather than ‘do you agree with the introduction of divorce’.
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando can put not just one but two feet in it and keep talking. He would be the ideal candidate as minister responsible for the intelligence and security services. Lawrence Gonzi, please note.
You can guarantee the “NO” vote will prevail and the parties will have put the issue to bed for eternity without having to blame themselves for bringing in the great evil that is divorce.
What a bunch of numpties.
Legislate, that’s what we elected you for! If we wanted referendums for every decision, we could have voted for “Switzerland in the Med” years ago.
I think the YES camp would carry the day.
Even though I have written in the past against the methodology being proposed, I still believe a referendum is the best way to settle this matter.
The Maltese will vote for Divorce. For many reasons, the principal among which are:
1. They still have the need to feel European, and Divorce is another item on the Europeanness shopping list;
2. Nearly everybody has a member of his family whose marriage has broken down;
3. To resist the creeping intrusion of certain members of the Church on our personal lives;
4. Because it is trendy.
These, and other reasons, convince me that the YES vote will win.
(YES = in favour of divorce granted by Maltese Courts; not YES in favour of the status quo.)
As things stand today, I am afraid the referendum on such a delicate issue would add heat rather than light for the citizen to be in a position to discern and decide.
My impression is that the key players themselves, including the church leaders, are still in the process of establishing their mindset before they take the lead. This is a divisive issue, even within the Catholics themselves, and so it seems that we have not taken any lesson from the Italian experience.
Hmmm…a journalist complaining that information has been leaked and not given out through the official channels. Such a complaint hardly respects the “Gurnalizmu fuq kollox” slogan. A journalist complaining that someone decided to spill the beans after a confidential meeting. Interesting indeed.
[Daphne – I am a journalist, Albert, but I am a citizen of Malta first and foremost, and I do not like to see a backbencher appeased to the detriment of the nation. Fullstop.]
I don’t know about that…I mean…journalists compete against each other to be first with the news. Journalists are not guardians of the nation.
[Daphne – That is exactly the purpose that certain branches of journalism are supposed to serve, Albert. Or had you forgotten? The fourth estate, remember? There can be no democracy without journalism, and where there is proper journalism, despotism, abuse and wrong-going by the authorities are kept in check. That’s why the political party for which you vote had The Times burnt down, forced independent radio to move to Sicily for pirate broadcasts, reduced writers to producing their work anonymously, and even tried to stifle free assemblage. We have no footage of the mass protests pre-1987 because the only television cameras in existence in the country (no video back then) were controlled by the state. It’s also why people like Anglu Farrugia, with his history and his political sentiments, use the police to silence criticism of his behaviour and publicity about his past misdeeds.]
Of course, in some regimes journalists were MADE TO BE guardians of the nation. Covering up information, or presenting it in such a way as to paint the regime in bright colours.
[Daphne – The word ‘nation’, Albert, refers to the people as distinct from the state, which is the word you were looking for.]
In this case, a journalist gave us news that the government has decided on a referendum.
[Daphne – No, Albert, no. A backbencher who has been causing trouble for two and a half years and who has been routinely appeased for that length of time, so that it has gone to his head and he now imagines he is a power-broker forming alliances with the prime minister’s political enemies and with John Dalli Today, emerged from a private meeting with the prime minister, wherein it was apparently discussed how he would handle press questions should the press find out about his meeting, and rushed out to ring Saviour Balzan, who had almost certainly been primed about the meeting beforehand. In other words, his first loyalty was not towards the prime minister and the government he serves but to his own narrow interests and those of his new associates at John Dalli Today. THAT is the story, not the pie-in-the-sky referendum. And I am able to see the story because I am a journalist by instinct and by profession and you are not.]
His source decided to go public, other sources would prefer to remain unnamed. In what way is this of detriment to the nation? To the PN, by all means, BIG detriment. But to the nation?
KELLU BZONN JPO MA JOHROGX FUQ H’ATTARD GHAX DIK LI BIL-FORS IRRID NAGHTIH IMQAR L-AHHAR NUMRU ANQAS NIFLAHA!
Min qallek li ma tistax thallih barra. Jiena noqghod il-Mosta (s’issa) u fl-ahhar elezzjoni sfortunatament hareg fuq dan id-distrett u jiddispjacini nghid li blajt il-farsa tieghu u vvutajtlu, insejt hux l-1 jew it-2.
Imma issa jekk jerga’ (nispera li le) jkun fuq il-lista tal-PN, bihsiebni li nhalli l-kaxxa ta’ ismu vojta – bla numru xejn – sabiex nuri li l-PN li pulcinelli bhalu mhux posthom fil-PN.
U hemm ohrajn bhalu tafux – dawk li l-mibki George Bonello Dupuis qallhom li hadd mhu ghola mill-partit. U zgur, u mhux forsi, li mhux qed jirraprezenta l-interess tieghi, JPO, ghalkemm dejjem isemmi u jinqeda bil-kostitwenti! Jien ivvutajtlu biss ghax hareg fuq il-PN u ghax irrid lill-Gvern ta’ Gonzi u ta’ Gonzi biss.
In a genuine democracy, and today’s Malta is as much a functioning democracy as most other democracies, the rights of minorities have to be respected by the elected majority.
These minority rights, actual or presumed, cannot be imposed by the minority against the will of the majority. That would be the antithesis of a democratic form of government that should be based on the principle of majority rule with respect for minority rights. The only alternative would be government by the minority against the expressed wish of the majority – and that is an untenable mockery of democracy.
[Daphne – I think you are confusing minority desires with minority rights. Your argument is that Catholics, who are in the majority, can impose their religious views about divorce on the rest, including other Catholics who disagree. How is this different from the argument that white people, because they are in the majority here (well, brown if not exactly white) can vote to keep black people, the minority, ghettoised?]
B’din il-hbiberija esagerata bejn JPO u Saviour Balzan u K. Stagno Navarra nispera li ma kienx hemm JPO wara certu attakki bla sugu fuq deputati Nazzjonalisti
“In a genuine democracy, the rights of minorities are implicit. The country is not called to vote upon them.” (DCG)
Therefore, in a “genuine” democratic Malta – where Muslims are a minority – they have the “implicit” right to trhe practice of their religion and to cut off the hands of their habitual thieves and to stone their adulterous women. – According to you, if the need arose, the country has no right to vote on that issue.
[Daphne – Obviously not, because human rights supersede and underpin the structure of European democracy. Rights that impinge, restrict, erode or eliminate the rights of others are not rights at all. It is precisely for the same reason that Muslims cannot stone women in Europe that Catholics should not be allowed to prevent others from divorcing in Malta.]
KELLU BZONN johrog fuq Hal-Ghaxaq, because he’s one of the few, from the new generation, that is worth his salt.
In Maltese we have a saying: taf fejn qieghed mieghu.
“taf fejn qieghed mieghu”- Daqskemm konna nafu fejn ahna mieghu dwar id-disco tal-Mistra!
Daphne,
The last paragraph of your column in The Malta Independent today says it all: most of us tend to judge everything in terms of black and white. Life and decisions are not clear-cut, therefore grey is very important.
I THINK THAT JPO IS BEHAVING THE WAY HE IS -THAT IS HE IS TRYING TO PLEASE EVEN THE Labour PARTY, SO THAT WHEN ELECTION TIME COMES, THEY WON’T COME UP WITH SOMETHING AGAINST HIM LIKE THAT OF THE MISTRA. IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM.
On second thoughts, the drawback is that there is a tad too much shoulder-rubbing with ‘Malta Today’.
Daph, I see you got a point there.
The “rights” of one minority may conflict with the “rights” of other minorities and even with the democratic rights of the large majority. They cannot all be accepted as implicit rights if they are mutually contradictory if not mutually exclusive. One “implicit right” will have to supervene on the other conflicting “implicit right” and there is no better democratic way to establish that except by democratically consulting the people.
[Daphne – No. Malta, as a state, is committed to upholding human rights and may be brought before the European Court of Human Rights if it transgresses. Those rights are sacrosanct, cast in stone, and by definition they are not decided upon by the will of the majority. These rights include the right of women not to be stoned. That is why, though Europe is full of Muslims and Islam is the second major religion after Christianity, no women are stoned for adultery in Europe.]
@Dr Saliba
Maybe this helps:
How can the State impose divorce on Catholics?
How does divorce conflict with Catholics’ rights if it is not imposed?
Yes Daphne you are right on human rights. But divorce is not a human right.
Divorce is a cultural issue, which should therefore be decided by the majority in a referendum.
Real minority rights are protected by the Law Courts.
E.g., it is wrong to hold a referendum on non-discrimination against homosexuals.
But it is right to hold a referendum on divorce.
Why?
Because not everybody is gay (i.e. homosexuals are a minority) whereas a very high percentage of the population are married, and are potential divorcees (therefore not a minority).
Can MaltaToday (John Dalli Today?) run another survey on JPO’s credibility among Nationalists now?
It would also be interesting if we had his credibility rating before and after the 2008 elections among the Labour supporters, and their view now.
In its heyday it used to be called Gahan Today. The 13.01.2004 issue was particularly introspective:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040806173842/www.maltafly.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=236
WARNING:
1. This is a semi-defunct archived page. Slow pic download. Go make yourself a coffee sakemm jitfacca Gahan.
2. Music upload was lost – the song was Gahan’s own “My Way”
3. Il-passat garanzija tal-futur – as with Gahan so with Gondalli.
Issa daqshekk! What wrong did I do to deserve all this!
Mr Farrugia seems to be suggesting that being a journalist and a gentleman is a contradiction in terms. On the contrary, the former has to be the latter. Otherwise you end up with neither. MaltaToday is ample proof of this.
I won’t bet one simple cent on his credibility, let alone vote for him.
PROSETT JEFFREY PULLICINO ORLANDO TOGOBNI HAFNA KIF TIKELLEM INT JGHALLA DAHHAL VERA ID DIVORZJU GHAX NEMMEN LI HAWN BZONNU HAWN MALTA ,HADT MA HA JITLAQ IL PARTNER GHAX IKUN DAHAL IL DIVORZJU MIN JITLAQ IL PARTNER SINJAL LI GHAX TKUN SPICCAT LIMHABBA U BID DIVORZU U MINGHAJRU XORTA WAHDA MA JISTAWX JGHAJXU FLIMKIEN , TRID TKUN FIJA IS SITWAZJONI BIEX TKUN TAF XIGIFIERI HADT MA JKUN MA HADT U HADT MA GHANDU DRITT JIGUDIKA LIL HADT..
“That is why, though Europe is full of Muslims and Islam is the second major religion after Christianity, no women are stoned for adultery in Europe”.]
May be not “stoned” for adultery, but, all over Europe, they are regularly murdered in accordance with their Sharia Law, because they made liasons not permitted by their religion. Their vengeful family relations insist on their implicit right to the freedom of their religion and their right to be tried by Sharia courts.
[Daphne – Yes, and they are breaking the law, just as people break the law in other ways.]
You are evading the problem that one fundamental human right may conflict with another right just as implicit and just as fundamental.
The fundamental human right (Article 18), to freedom of religion and to the practice and observances of that religion, (e.g. Sharia) is in manifest conflict with Article 5 that forbids torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. In any newly emerging situation you would exclude, for unclear reasons, any ad hoc consultation to ascertain majority opinion as one important facet of the decision making process. A government elected years previously, with a program that did not mention the new problem could not pretend to have been given a mandate democratically to ignore majority opinion. Legislating without that specific mandate would be a mockery and a travesty of democracy.
If the majority wants a lower tax (on an unspecific item), does the elected government automatically lower the tax if it wasn’t in their programme? It would be what the majority wants, right?
Removal of taxes cannot be part of an electoral programme.
Alfred Sant nearly did it when he said he will remove VAT but his promise was that he will replace it.
Now Joseph is trying the same monetary tactic: the living wage, which will catch the votes on the low income bracket.
Dr Saliba: divorce is NOT a fundamental human right.
Therefore the discussion – although very interesting – is irrelevant.
The other point – on legislating without a mandate – I agree with, having argued it myself previously on this blog.
A “genuine” democracy, such as everybody should wish for in Malta, should not be a sporadic phenomenon that emerges for a few days only, once every four or five years at election time, only to be shelved for the intervening periods and to be replaced by some version of an autocracy practiced by a Prime Minister (who may have been co-opted not democratically elected) flanked by members of parliament insulting each other as being a corrupt lot.
A democratically elected elected government is not bound to legislate in accordance with the wishes expressed at a general election or after a consultative referendum.
Now you have lost me!
A few inches above this comment you said: “A government elected years previously, with a program that did not mention the new problem could not pretend to have been given a mandate democratically to ignore majority opinion. Legislating without that specific mandate would be a mockery and a travesty of democracy”
And now you say: “A democratically elected elected government is not bound to legislate in accordance with the wishes expressed at a general election or after a consultative referendum”
There is a contradiction here, isn’t there?
Perhaps I am not seeing how the two arguments do not mutually exclude each other.
Last Sunday, it was Consuelo Scerri Herrera’s 46th birthday. To celebrate, she went out to lunch with Robert Musumeci (of course) and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando and his partner.My, they ARE good friends.
So what Fairy Liquid, JPO can be a friend to whom he want to ,I gave him my vote in the last election and I will do it again cause I would like to see more people like him in parliament.
Thanks JPO
@ D Grech: Pullicino Orlando can go out with whoever he likes, but seeing a magistrate with a politician is just not on.
I defended him in the last general election but I feel I was taken for a ride by this politician. If I have to choose I will choose a new face after scrutinising him or her inside out.
Some backbenchers and others have become so big headed that they think they are better than their leader. Next time round we will vote for new faces hoping they themselves won’t follow the same path.
Min Weber,
No contradiction at all. It is an obvious fact that parliamentarians do not legislate on everything they have promised, that they act differently because supervening circumstances may have produced situations that had not been anticipated at election time, that they “cross the carpet” and commence to vote according to the mandate of a different political party with its own different mandate.
I think it is a disgrace that our politicians wash their hands of their responsibilities on a simple matter like this.
I have a hunch that this referendum will not be too costly though.
Time might well prove me right in predicting that it will be just an addditional paper to the election’s ballot paper.
Only in that way will either party “come clean”, i.e. avoid the responsibility, whimps that they are.
Min Weber
I never said that divorce is a fundamental human right. I said that divorce is not a right at all, neither under the Declaration of Fundamental Rights nor under any locally enacted laws. I said that in order to confute the argument that the majority would be denying any minority right to divorce. That is a pretended right that does not exist at all.
[Daphne – It is a minority right, or a civil right. I think Giovanni Bonello was very instructive about this in an interview in The Sunday Times this week.]