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I love it: the government is introducing what it calls an eco-tax. Only a few weeks ago the Greens were being attacked for being associated with their European counterparts who advocated eco-taxes.
Now the PN government has forgotten about eco-taxes being a good reason for blackballing people and has itself picked up the jargon.
Anybody who has had a look at the AD manifesto, which has been on the internet since 2001, knows that an eco-tax is a very, very distant relation of what the government is proposing today. We are told that the revenue to be generated by the new tax will be spent on addressing Malta’s waste challenge. That is what makes it an eco-tax in the government’s view.
In the Green proposal eco-taxes are part of a shift in taxation from labour to consumption. The idea is to encourage employment and to direct consumption in an eco-friendly direction while allowing consumers a choice. There has to be a reduction of traditional taxes to produce the shift. The government is simply increasing the tax burden. A crucial Green concept associated with eco-taxes is hypothecation: the introduction of a dedicated tax.
Through hypothecation taxpayers are assured that all revenue collected from a specific tax is to be spent in addressing a particular item of expenditure. Although the government has justified the tax by mentioning the costs of dealing with Malta’s waste, there is no express commitment to dedicate this revenue to waste treatment. Taxpayers have no reason to believe that their taxes will only go towards waste treatment costs.
In civilised countries the introduction of such a tax is preceded by a technical study exploring its effect on the economy with due consideration of the results of consultation. The law itself would include the mechanisms to ensure a reduction in the tax once its specific targets are achieved through a wider compliance.
Nothing of the kind was done. The Malta Council for Economic and Social development was asked to rubberstamp the government’s decision. The patronising attitude of government on this issue only adds to the deepening conviction that bodies such as the MCESD are used by the government as buffers to prevent public debate and to divert opposition to its plans. A valuable institutional instrument is being abused once more. The government’s democratic credentials are being eroded further.
More and more people ask themselves why we joined the EU if we are going to carry on with the Mintoffian style of government from above forever. More and more people are beginning to understand why the opposition continues to give the cold shoulder to invitations to join institutions such as the MCESD or MEUSAC. Who wants to be a token nigger for the PN?
After 17 years in office, the masters of PN power have come to consider themselves to be indispensable and inevitable, God’s gift to Malta. It is the occupational hazard of being a one party government for so long. These people are really convinced that they are superior to everybody else in the country and that consultation is a glorious waste of time. They are probably the least European government in the EU.
The MLP has long described this as arrogance. It certainly is. It is the arrogance of the winner in the winner-takes-all system sustained by the MLP. It is old fashioned and dangerous. It allows the present PN sanctum sanctorum to harbour illusions that it can push ahead with neo-liberal absurdities with impunity.
On top of the attitude problem lies the less malleable problem of having much to hide from their antagonists in the no-holds-barred contest of two party politics. In spite of EU membership the government feels obliged to govern in secret. Information is power and power is never shared. The duplicity of the boasts about our rock solid economy (Ekonomijia fis-sod) are forgiven by PN partisans who point to the unyielding MLP wolves at the door.
It will take us much longer to recover because we know that we cannot believe anything the government says because we can see why the government is constrained to lie. It all makes politics seem like an unbearable extravagance. Nobody believes that the latest revenue spinner is an eco-tax. It’s just another tax because the government is in a mess and cannot afford to let us know how much of a mess it is in.
Why on earth should anyone believe that the people who bungled 17 years in government losing close to Lm100 M per year, should be capable of getting us out of the mess they have created? If they failed to build a decent relationship with the opposition when they had us all believing in the feel-good-factor, how can anybody hope that they can come across decently now that they have a crowd of skeletons rattling in their cupboard? They would be ripped to shreds if they came clean.
There will be no real consultation because the basis is a full statement of the facts. On every issue the government has tried to obtain concessions from the social partners without first laying its cards on the table: what do we really know about the situation in the Public Health, Welfare and Pensions sectors? Do the social partners have any reason to believe that they will be effectively consulted and their advice given due weight?
The government has painted itself into a corner and we are all waiting for the paint to dry.
Just over a month ago 29,000 people made it clear that they can no longer be taken for granted. They are fed up with the political logjam which has been identified as the cause of a nightmarish economic cost. Calling a new tax an eco-tax will not make them happier. The country is still waiting for a substantial change in attitude, a radical reform in the way politics are done in Malta. The government fails to deliver again and again and again.
Dr Vassallo is Chairperson of Alternattiva Demokratika
– The Green Party
harry.vassallo@alternattiva.org.mt
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