Enough with the casuistry, Mr Prime Minister – you're going to strangle your party in it
Recommended reading for members of the present government
timesofmalta.com, just now:
Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said today that it was unfair that MPs were being pressured to declare how they would vote in Parliament on divorce, when the legislative process was only just starting.
Unfair? Unfair? Pressure?
This from the man who has spent the last few months before the referendum upping the tempo on telling us that divorce will mean the end of Malta (if not the world as we know it), that it will mean an overnight switch from permanent marriage to temporary marriage, that women will lie in the gutters abandoned in droves, their children suckling at their dried-out breasts, that men will be running off with fortune-hunters half their age and leaving their family destitute, that because he has a conscience he will vote No (implying that those who vote Yes have no conscience), that just because the whole world has divorce does not mean that it is right, and that the wrath of hell will descend upon us with divorce legislation.
This from the man who told his party to take a position against divorce and committed it to fighting against divorce legislation, meaning that thousands of PN supporters of a certain kind – look at the numbers for the districts – were directly influenced and ended up voting No because if that’s what Lawrence Gonzi thinks then he must be right.
From the same report on timesofmalta.com:
(The prime minister) said that while he had stressed, as soon as the referendum result was out, that the will of the people would be respected, MPs should not be asked how they would vote until the legislative process was complete and the final version of the Bill was ready.
What would happen if the final version did not reflect the referendum question which the people had expressed themselves on?
In response, I quote his own words back at him:
The Malta Independent, 17 March 2011
After Dr Gonzi concluded, Dr Muscat asked Dr Gonzi, through the Speaker of the House, whether the Prime Minister has a different question ready to give the electorate over the divorce referendum. Dr Gonzi said he has no question, but again highlighted that, whatever the referendum question, the electorate will be asked whether or not to introduce divorce in Malta.
People voted for divorce, end of story, just as they voted for EU membership, full stop. How many of those who voted in the EU referendum actually read the EU accession treaty? Nobody except those involved in working on it, I’ll wager. But that’s what we voted on.
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“PM: Unfair to pressure MPs on their divorce vote”
No, it is not unfair. It is the pound of flesh to be paid for the daft decision to have the executive vote against divorce. If the bill is left unpaid, there will only be resentment by the critical liberal vote.
The PN is turning into a pale copy of the Democrazia Cristiana party in Italy: both were hijacked by ‘moralisti e perbenisti’ and both parties stood against and lost the divorce referenda.
For all our sake, we can only hope Gonzi will not continue this wriggling and morph into a sleazy Italian backroom dealer.
The EU referendum was a political issue and the divorce referendum is a moral one. That is why the free (conscience) vote in parliament. The turnout was 21% less. Furthermore, we still do not know what amendments are going to be made to the divorce bill.
Parliament has no right to make amendments contrary to what the people have decided. If they do they will have to refer back to the people!? I want to make something clear so that I will not be misinterpreted. The YES has won the referendum BUT this does not mean that is bound to act on the advice of a consultative referendum.
Your writing reminds me of a post EU-referendum Super one njuwskaster repeating the word ‘konsultattiv’ seven times in a ten word sentence.
I can’t fathom why a majority vote is being brushed off as a mere suggestion or a hint. Are we to vote on lead ballot sheets to be able to throw our weight around?
Or do the MPs really prefer to use them as toilet-paper? The cartoonist Nalizpelra hit the nail on the head today with his piece in The Sunday Times.
Lawrence Gonzi: from the party’s best asset, to its greatest liability. In a matter of three years.
The twin pillars of the old Malta are no longer vote winners.
The Church bungled the divorce referendum into a referendum about itself and was going to be the loser with any vote “worse” than 98% No on a full turn-out.
“Yes” winning in the face of the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by the No campaign must have come as an incredible shock to people like Prime Minister Gonzi.
For the PN, the referendum message is even more alarming. Electors in its key districts have discovered they can vote decisively against GonziPN’s wishes and that the sun still rises the next morning.
The PN has to reinvent itself as a modern, socially liberal, economically conservative party to have any chance of re-election. Gonzi’s casuistry simply shows he is not the man to lead the party to salvation and a new leader is needed.
For the PL, the referendum message is even more alarming. Electors in its key districts have discovered they can vote decisively against Muscat’s wishes and that the sun still rises the next morning.
I think you are on your own reading the electoral tea leaves that way, John- certainly the media commentariat have not come up with that one.
From what I can see, Muscat’s hand has been decisively strengthened. PL supporters opposed to divorce did not vote against him unlike pro-divorce PN supporters who blew a loud raspberry at Gonzi in the polling booths.
Muscat only has two dissenters on his Parliamentary benches (one of whom is retiring as a result) despite not whipping whilst the PN Parliamentary is dissolving into a kalaidoscope of different positions exacerbated by the PM’s dithering.
I am no PL supporter and see Muscat as a potential disaster for Malta. But the PM has played this so incredibly badly that he has made a master strategist and statesman of Muscat.
You bastards!
To quote a memorable line from a famous (or is that infamous) movie:
“Just when I think I’m out, they keep pulling me back in.”
All I want is to live (and let live) in peace. I thought I was done with Maltese politics.
So stop making me feel that I have to fight tooth and nail just to have a civil right, available in each and every other EU member state and duly endorsed in a free referendum, enacted through the formality of parliament procedure.
Stop it, stop it, for goodness’ sake stop it!
People were consulted and voted for divorce on certain guarantees written in the referendum question. Parliament’s job is to put the referendum question into practice with the maximum number of MPs voting for it.
The referendum question was:
“Do you agree with the indtroduction of the choice of divorce in the case of a married couple who has been separated or has been living apart for at least four (4) years, and where there is no reasonable hope for reconciliation between the spouses, whilst at the same time ensuring that adequate maintenance is guaranteed and the welfare of the children is safeguarded?”
Parliament has to make sure that there is ‘adequate maintenance’ and the ‘safeguarding of the children’s welfare’.
My worries still are that we are going to pay a hefty price for these safeguards, unless divorcees will have to pay a weekly contribution in an insurance pool.
[Daphne – Oh come on, John. Marriage law has laid down for years that spouses have the legal obligation to support each other, and their children, financially. In practice, what does this mean? That the taxpayer supports the woman who is kept short by her husband? Or the children who are kept short by mothers who spend their money on scratch cards? No, life just goes on. The women who are kept short find a way to earn money, and the children grow up and get jobs.]
“No, life just goes on. The women who are kept short find a way to earn money, and the children grow up and get jobs.”
You confirmed my worries, there are no guarantees for women, and children will suffer in there schooling while they are growing up and consequently we will create a new breed of poverty.
[Daphne – There have never been any guarantees for women, John. Marriage offers guarantees for men, not women, or at least it has done so until fairly recently. The only guarantee a woman has is from her own work and income. Everything else is a risk, however loving and giving the husband. Twas ever thus, with or without divorce.]
Ensuring adequate maintenance and safeguarding children’s welfare without digging into the taxpayers pockets is one step higher than the legal obligation of ‘manteniment’, you’re suggesting.
The Yes movement always criticised the No side that they had no solution for marriage breakdown. They seemed to have a solution which had guarantees, and people voted Yes on that written proviso which I will not repeat.
[Daphne – I certainly did not, nor did anyone I know who voted Yes. People who voted Yes tend to be realists. The idealists and reality-deniers voted No and were worried about guaranteeing maintenance, as those there is any way in real life that you can do that. If there were, the children’s homes would be full of children, would they. And married women would not clean other people’s homes.]
I wasn’t joking when I wrote that divorcees should make a pre-calculated weekly contribution (based on the age and number of offspring amongst other things) in an insurance pool so that the welfare of the children and their parent would be guaranteed.
[Daphne – Why divorcees? Do you ask such guarantees of married men (or women)? The real poverty of women, John, is mainly hidden from view and occurs in marriage, not divorce or separation. It is, in fact, one of the top reasons for marital breakdown: men keeping their wives short or using money as a form of control. And most often, the women are too proud to reveal anything of this until the day that they snap.]
We were assured that life would be better off for divorcees more than it is for separated couples. If it is not, I ask “why did we go through all this?”
I have ‘kids’ the same age as your boys, and you know as much as I do that raising a family with three children is not an easy task for two working parents, let alone for one sole breadwinner.
[Daphne – Divorce does not make the children the responsibility of one breadwinner. Divorce does not allow you to wash your hands of your financial obligations towards your children. Our legal responsibilities towards our children exist independently of whether we are married to the other parent, or whether they live with us, or whether we have another set of children.]
Our MPs should pool their ideas in a brainstorming exercise away from the public eye and come up with a system which fits the referendum question and our existing laws, without burdening the welfare state.
We don’t lack lawyers in the house (they know the ropes) , let’s use them, like we did in the financial services law and the rent law.
[Daphne – John, the mistake you’re making here is a common one among those who voted No. It is to imagine that divorce will somehow change the already existing situation in which couples with children go their separate ways. It won’t and it can’t. A separation ruling or contract divides assets and apportions maintenance and child custody in exactly the same way that a divorce ruling does. There is absolutely no difference. I cannot see why the confusion exists, unless it is perhaps in the mistaken belief that divorce allows you to abandon a wife and children. It doesn’t, no more than the present marital law does. Of course, there is nothing to stop a man jumping ship and disappearing to another country, as used to happen so often in Malta, but the fact that it happens does not mean the law allows it.]
I read the referendum question and voted NO because I did not believe it can be done without burdening our welfare state, and you just voted YES knowing fully well that it cannot be done without reading the last part :”…… whilst at the same time ensuring that adequate maintenance is guaranteed and the welfare of the children is safeguarded?”.
Are you saying that people who voted Yes for responsible divorce with guarantees were hoodwinked?
[Daphne – No, that they just didn’t care because guess what, most of them know already how divorce works. They also knew that laws exist already which oblige men and women to maintain their children financially regardless of whether they live with them or not. Divorce law will not supersede that. Divorce rulings merely LAY OUT THE AMOUNT of maintenance a parent is obliged to pay. I found the question childish.]
When I wrote divorcee I meant a divorced and re-married person . Sorry.
Daphne you are assuming a lot:
“most of them know already how divorce works.” Not those who voted YES because of Muscat!
“They also knew that laws exist already which oblige men and women to maintain their children financially regardless of whether they live with them or not.”
Guarantee is one step higher from being obliged. Guaranteeing the welfare of the rest of the family cannot be done by sending the guarantor who faulted, to prison like we are witnessing today.
We were told that new divorce legislation was going to guarantee maintenance, and that’s why the question was long and the bill was called responsible.
If people wanted any kind of divorce the question would have been a simple one “Do you want divorce legislation to be introduced in Malta?”
Instead we had a very detailed and specific question for which the majority voted yes.The proposed law should satisfy those specifications, without burdening the taxpayer please.
[Daphne – I don’t think anyone is contemplating burdening the taxpayer. Do you? That’s not how these things work. At most, a woman whose husband is unable – as opposed to unwilling, because the law can force him to pay – maintenance will be expected to register for work, look for a job, and get ‘relief’ if she can’t find one. I don’t see what’s wrong with this. It’s what happens already. There are thousands of married women in Malta working at menial jobs because their husbands don’t earn enough to keep the family, or because they spend their money on gambling and smoking.].
“I don’t think anyone is contemplating burdening the taxpayer.”
Well I heard Joseph Muscat talking in that sense, I’m not sure where, but I think it was in the divorce debate when he brought up his Enlightenment argument and the Guze’ Ellul Mercer crucifix which he holds dear.
He said something in the sense that helping divorced families carry the burden is another form of solidarity. “Ghala le?” he concluded… and I started worrying.
[Daphne – When he becomes prime minister, John, that’s going to be the least of our worries.]
If we’re going to increase the number of people on relief, wouldn’t we be burdening the welfare system and creating more people living on a shoestring budget with all the other consequences?
Don’t we all know that if a divorced person gets married again s/he can go abroad with the new partner and leave the first family penniless?
[Daphne – Nothing to stop a man going away now, John. There never was. Ask Charles Flores: he once wrote an article explaining how his merchant seaman father just disappeared in the 1950s, leaving his mother with a house full of children to raise and no money or way of contacting him. He next got in touch when he was dying and Charles was grown up. That sort of story was really common. You didn’t have to watch Tista Tkun Int to know this. People are more civilised now, and it’s almost impossible to disappear for good, even if you bestial enough to want to. And if you think leaving for another country puts you out of the reach of the law….]
Who will take care of the welfare of the victims? Will we have a mechanism to guarantee the victims’ sustenance to be paid by the responsible ex/co-breadwinner?
Your arguments on sustenance, made me recall the incident when the illegally interned Herbert Ganado started worrying on who will take care of his family and asked the prison commander about this; “Your father and family will take care of your wife and kids, they’re well off” was the immediate reply. Ganado was never compensated for this unfair treatment. Your answer is similar “tough life!”.
[Daphne – Yes, indeed it is. So women should make like a boy scout and Be Prepared.]
You continuously point at the women who are unable or unwilling to contribute to what’s left of the family. Men have the responsibility to contribute to the maintenace of the children even if the wife works and she should be paid for half the services rendered if she keeps the children.
Btw: scratch cards are no longer in use.
[Daphne – Unlike you, and because I believe that women should keep their dignity even in the most deleterious circumstances, I am against women being paid for their services in the home. This reduces them to the level of an employee in their own household – and worse, their husband’s employee if he does the paying. Beyond that, the husband will begin to expect this and that job done in return for the money he pays (several Maltese husbands I know of do this already by buying clothes and holidays for their wife “if she is good, and nice”), and will feel that he is not obliged to do anything around the house because he pays his wife to do it. Married women whose marital regime is the standard community of property/earnings would be badly advised to accept money which is already theirs as payment from their husband. If you mean that the state should pay housewives to be housewives, then you shock me – especially given your overstated concern that divorcees and their children will become a burden on the taxpayer. Aside from that, you misinterpret me. I do not ‘point at women’ while ignoring men’s responsibilities. I am merely of the opinion – one that is based on being a woman and at the receiving end of other women’s life experiences over 30 years of listening and observing – that when a man is an arsehole the last thing you want or need is to be financially dependent on him, whether he lives with you or not. There are few pleasures greater than being able to tell a man to f**k off because you don’t want or need his money. Many women reading this will know exactly what I mean, but I tend to find that men don’t understand it at all. You clearly don’t. You appear to think that women in general want money more than their pride and dignity. Only some women do, and there’s a word beginning with P to describe them: pathetic, not prostitute (though in some cases, that too). Most women I know would rather live on bread and water than be made to dance to the tune of a maintenance cheque sent by somebody for whom they have lost all respect.]
I think Gonzi would prefer to be in opposition.
He certainly is doing all he can to lose.
Doesn’t anyone stop and think anymore?
While we Nationalist supporters struggle among ourselves in trying to convince our representatives to do the right thing and vote Yes, Dr. Muscat and his boys are keeping their fingers crossed that perhaps by a miracle, with the intercession of Tonio’s Madonna, the bill will not pass.
That would be Muscat’s biggest victory ever, and it will condemn the P.N.to eternal damnation (politicaly speaking).
Just imagne this scenario.
All Labour MPs, except two, will shout Yes to the speaker’s question.
All Nationalist MPs are in their seats, but only 5 or 6 shout No (and I mean SHOUT) while the others keep their mouths shut and covered.
What will the speaker hear from his place? Yes from the P.L.side and No from the PN side.
Who will ask for a division in case the speaker decides that the Nos carried the day? No one.
I think the Speaker will know the difference between the voices of 6 and 35 MPs.
If the Nationalist Party gets this (PM’s parliamentary vote) wrong then it’s finished. What a pity considering that Dr. Gonzi did an excellent job when faced with world’s worst financial meltdown ever.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘getting it wrong’. The law will definitely pass and the sooner the better, so that this country can get on with its other business.
The Nationalist government will be judged on other parameters such as handling the economy. Saying that the government is finished because of this largely irrelevant law does not say much about us.
As if we are doing something that nobody else has done.
Which law Joe? There’s no law because it hasn’t been drafted yet.