... the whips get cracking. DAVID AGIUS offers a Nationalist perspective on the recent furore in the House, the ‘Galea factor’, as well as the progressive politics of Joseph Muscat
As PN whip, David Agius faces the unenviable task of co-ordinating the movements and votes of government MPs on the one hand; and on the other, ‘collaborating’ with the Opposition to ensure that parliamentary business runs as smoothly as possible.
I am half tempted to start off the interview by asking which of these two aspects he dreads the most. It turns out I don’t need to, as he practically volunteers the answer unprompted.
“You wouldn’t believe it, judging only by everything that happened in the past two weeks, but in the one year and nine months in which I’ve been doing this I have never had any problems reaching agreements with Joe...”
The ‘Joe’ in question is Joe Mizzi: Agius’s opposite number on the Labour side, to whom he refers for all the world as though they were bosom buddies.
“Until that Thursday when all hell broke loose, I had literally lost count of the number of agreements we had reached, Joe and I, together with the Speaker of the House. We have always informed each other when our members were going abroad. I can mention loads of times when Joe would ask me to postpone a vote – he wouldn’t even have to specify why – and I always accepted. And so did he, when I asked the same...”
OK, so far it sounds a bit like an episode of The Care Bears. When do we get to the blood-and-guts part?
Agius argues that the events of Thursday, 6 May ‘unhinged’ the Labour opposition, and caused it to ditch its previous gentlemanly approach to Parliament. As an example, he invites me to consider another controversial vote – this time taken in January 2009.
“For all of 2008 we had worked well together... until January 2009, when Tonio Borg and I were both abroad. Suddenly, out of the blue, Joe Mizzi asked the house to adjourn from Monday to Thursday, to debate the motion against the St John’s Co-Cathedral project...”
More than any other previous vote, that motion exposed the precariousness of the government’s single-seat majority – a vulnerability that has since been exploited time and again by the Opposition, and to a lesser extent also by individual government backbenchers.
The Prime Minister’s reaction at the time was to push forward a procedural motion, which obliged divisions to always be called on a Wednesday at 1pm.
“This motion has been in place ever since, but we never resorted to it ourselves. I agreed with Tonio Borg (as leader of the House) that even though we passed the motion ourselves, we shouldn’t insist on it, as apart from that single incident in January 2009, things quickly went back to working well. We were once again reaching agreements to facilitate the workings of Parliament... until May 2010...”
Agius goes on to explain how – ironically – it was the Opposition to seize on government’s own motion and force a division, despite having agreed beforehand not to. The issue being debated at the time was MEPA reform. On Wednesday, 5 May – the day before the fracas – the two whips agreed to defer this vote to a future date, without specifying which date in particular.
“So they waited until one government backbencher (Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando) was away on government business, then sprang our own motion to force a division in the House, despite the fact that we had never agreed on a date when the vote had to be taken...”
All well and good, but listening to the Nationalist party whip accusing others of being ‘devious’ strikes me as odd, considering that the events of Thursday 6 May have left such a deep impression of ‘deviousness’ on the part of the government.
Let’s start with the vote itself. As everyone and his dog now knows, parliamentary secretary for Health Mario Galea – interestingly enough, also a former whip – voted in favour of the opposition’s motion, in what was very clearly a mistake. But when it came to the end of the vote, the Speaker took a point of order from Tonio Borg, and then controversially decided to suspend the sitting to listen to a recording of proceedings. What followed was an apparently unprecedented decision to call for a re-vote.
When I put the question directly to David Agius: did Justyne Caruana vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?, he instantly distances himself from the controversy. “I couldn’t hear how Justyne Caruana voted from where I was sitting. But I can definitely say that Dolores Cristina, Austin Gatt, Louis Deguara and Edwin Vassallo – who were all sitting opposite her at the time – did look at each other when she voted, as if to say ‘Did we hear right?’ There was a reaction at the time, not afterwards as some have been saying...”
And yet, between Justyne Caruana and Mario Galea, there were another 18 MPs who cast their vote. Surely if there was any ambiguity over Justyne’s vote, it could have been raised earlier?
“That’s precisely the point – it couldn’t. According to the Standing Orders you have to wait for the whole vote to be taken before raising any doubts... this is why Tonio Borg could only register the doubt when he did.”
And I take it Tonio Borg didn’t hear how Justyne Caruana voted either...
“No. He was informed of the doubt only by the other MPs.”
It all seems very convenient, doesn’t it? David Agius shrugs. “I’m just telling you how things happened...”
In the meantime, all 34 Opposition MPs have rallied behind Caruana, issuing sworn statements that they all heard her say ‘Yes’. Has the government whip considered a similar initiative?
“Let’s be honest, I can’t be expected to undertake a solemn oath on something I didn’t hear myself...”
Fair enough, but what about the MPs you mentioned above? Gatt, Cristina, Deguara, etc.?
“It’s not something we’ve discussed at parliamentary group level.”
Would you consider discussing it in future? After all, it could help clarify what actually happened, and maybe restore some confidence in the workings of Parliament...
David Agius deflects the issue with a surprising twist. “But why?” he suddenly counters. “What purpose would it serve? Remember that this was not a vote that could have brought the government down... and as Joe Mizzi himself said, even if we lost the vote, we could have always passed a counter-motion. The whole thing has been blown out of proportion...”
I point out that there is also parliamentary procedure at stake. You cannot have one set of rules applying one day, then another the next. So we turn our attention to the Speaker’s reaction to the confusion, and matters immediately get more... well... confusing.
Was Frendo right to suspend the sitting in order to listen to the recording?
“The Speaker’s role in such case is determined by the Standing Orders. The only trouble is, the Standing Orders are themselves open to interpretation...”
Agius instantly produces a copy of the rulebook, and flicks it open to the all-important regulation 83. “Look - it says the Speaker has to ‘forthwith’ declare the result of the vote...”
That is precisely the opposition’s point: ‘forthwith’ means immediately. But it didn’t happen immediately. Instead, the Speaker took a point of order before the vote was announced...
This in turn brings us to regulation 84, which deals with what happens in the event of ‘confusion’ over the vote. Agius here produces his trump card: the minutes of the session – the same minutes that took seven hours to approve the following Monday – appear to suggest that the Assistant Clerks themselves also noted a doubt over how Caruana voted.
But isn’t this merely a reference to the same doubt raised by Tonio Borg? Agius shakes his head. “No, it is not just the Nationalist MPs I mentioned who had doubts. At least one of the Assistant Clerks didn’t hear Justyne Caruana’s vote clearly, either...”
At this point I have to say that it strikes me as odd, that we’ve had a Parliament since 1921 (albeit on and off, and with different rules) and yet we still don’t have a very clear voting system...
The PN whip nods sympathetically. “To be honest the situation as it is remains ambiguous. Most of the time parliamentary votes are not recorded at all. It is merely understood that government MPs would vote with the government, and opposition MPs with the opposition. I can show you past minutes where motions were approved without any written record of the actual voting. This is why I am recommending a system of walking through different doors, like they do in the House of Commons (UK).”
At this point, talk inevitably turns to the notorious ‘lapsus’ that sparked off the entire controversy. In a classic case of media spin, the Nationalists managed to turn tables onto Labour – in particular, Joe Mizzi – for attributing Galea’s mistake to the fact that he had had a whiskey before the vote. Apologies have since flown about like confetti... but wasn’t Mizzi’s comment prompted by David Agius himself, who alluded to Mario Galea’s health issues (namely, depression) on the same TV programme?
David Agius vehemently disagrees, as evidenced by a copy of our editorial last Wednesday, visible on his desk, with entire paragraphs highlighted in yellow. “It wasn’t like that at all. On that TV programme I was speaking in general terms. I didn’t refer specifically to Mario Galea at all... I just said that, up until now, both sides of the house had traditionally refused to take advantage of MPs when there were health issues involved...”
Yes, but he was talking within a precise context, which was the aftermath of Galea’s vote. The connection is inescapable – by referring to health issues in that context, he was clearly implying that Galea was unwell at the time...
But Agius waves this aside, arguing instead that press articles about the issue created the false impression that Mizzi’s reply was made directly in reply to his own.
“That’s not how it went. Mizzi’s reaction wasn’t spontaneous. Between the time I said what I said and he made his comment, there was a commercial break, then the news headlines, then more adverts, then we came back live on air. He had plenty of time to think over what he was about to say... it’s not as though it was a case of tit for tat...”
Be that as it may... is it true that Mario Galea reproached David Agius afterwards?
“He did call me, yes, but only after calling Joe Mizzi to complain about the whiskey comment. He basically asked me to tell him what had happened exactly, as he hadn’t watched the programme and had heard about it from third parties...
And is it also true that Agius, as party whip, was concerned about a possible lapsus before it took place?
“Let’s put it this way: it’s my job to remind ALL MPs about how they are suppose to vote, not just Mario Galea. This is standard procedure... I go round them one by one, saying: today’s it’s ‘No’, or today it’s ‘Yes’, etc. Each MP has a different way of doing things: some write it down; others rely on memory. On that day I might have told Mario Galea twice instead of once, but otherwise there was nothing unusual...”
Leaving aside parliament, we turn to last weekend’s PN general conference. Apart from all the usual congratulatory self-praise we have come to expect from such events, I couldn’t help but note a disproportionate reference to the events of the 1970s and 1980s – in particular, the violence of ‘Old Labour’. Is this going to be the PN’s strategy from now on? And how can the PN claim to be a forward-looking party... when all it ever seems to do is look backwards?
“We are definitely a forward-looking party, and we will contest the next election on the strength of Vision 2015. But at the same time, you do have to remember these things, yes... especially after the events of Thursday, 6 May. How can we not be reminded of what used to happen, when it all starts happening again? I’ll be honest with you: it’s not as though we on the government side are all virgins. Sometimes we shout, sometimes we joke, sometimes we get angry. But not with the sort of hysteria we saw that day. How can you not remember those times, when they threaten you in parliament, using that kind of language? When they throw chairs into the aisle... break a microphone... when even people in the Strangers’ Gallery shout and threaten? I can understand that people get upset, but there are other, more democratic ways to deal with situations like that. Joseph Muscat claims to be a progressive and a moderate, but that’s not how moderates and progressives behave...”
At the same time, however, doesn’t it irk people like David Agius that his own party’s hopes for electoral success in 2013 seem to depend more on the eternal mediocrity of the Labour Party, rather than on its own merits?
Agius shakes his head. “The mediocrity of the PL simply means that government has to provide its own Opposition, in order to strengthen itself from within. But the mood in the party at the moment is very optimistic, and getting stronger by the day. You could feel it at the conference. I think what happened in Parliament opened many people’s eyes...”
For all this, Agius looks forward to getting back to the former ‘Care Bears’ attitude, whereby Parliament works smoothly thanks to mutual agreements between the whips.
“Even after everything that has happened, Joe Mizzi and I still managed to meet, together with the Speaker, and agree on a way forward for the immediate future. Now that Joseph Muscat is in Australia, we have agreed on a procedure motion, whereby we will refrain from taking any votes while he is a away. This is a sign of goodwill on our part. I sincerely hope we get back to our usual gentlemanly ways so that Parliament gets back to normal.”
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