A minister resigns

“The Minister made the decision to quit, himself” the Prime minister announced. So why did he resign? He had broken no law

He wasn’t found guilty of any infringement. He hadn’t even broken the ministerial code of conduct. He didn’t have any friendship with money launderers or murder suspects. He had not accepted thousands of euro from suspected criminals. He had not been involved in negotiating any property purchase for suspected money launderers. He had not enjoyed lavish stays at luxury hotels at the expense of persons accused of procuring firearms and grenades. He had not enjoyed dinners and boat trips with murder suspects.

The Prime minister explained his minister’s resignation. “Upholding standards is extremely important. It’s not just about actual conflict of interest. It’s about the obligation to avoid any perception of conflict of interest that led the minister to resign”.

That Prime minister wasn’t Robert Abela. That Minister wasn’t Edward Zammit Lewis. It was Christian Porter, Minister of Industry, Science and Technology who handed in his resignation to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. But Australia is a normal country.

Porter resigned because he refused to identify the “ordinary people” who donated money to help him pay legal fees for a defamation case he lodged against ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). He discontinued the case after they reached an amicable solution.

Porter even updated his register of interests to declare he received donations. Those contributing had done so on the basis that their donation would remain confidential. Porter had a choice. He either revealed who gave him the money or resigned. He opted for the latter. Failure to reveal the names of donors meant that a perceived conflict of interest could not be ruled out. So Porter had to go.

This is what proper public standards are.

The tragic farce that we witness with regular consistency at our Parliamentary standards committee is exposed for what it is. We despair and mourn the pathetic mediocrity the nation has to put up with.

While Chris Porter duly offered his resignation for failing to reveal the names of those donating towards his legal fees, our former prime minister accepted over 21,000 euro which he kept secret. When the media revealed that those pricey first class tickets to Dubai for Muscat and his family were a gift, Muscat requested details of the visit be kept secret. This wasn’t a minister. It was the prime minister accepting first class tickets, transportation and accommodation for himself and his family from a secret donor - and insisting the public he served should not know about it.

What was more galling was that the Commissioner for Standards accepted Muscat’s request to withhold publication of details of the visit and the secret donor. The Commissioner was complicit in keeping the public in the dark. And if that weren’t enough, he decided that there was no breach of ethics. His illogical explanation was that since Muscat was due to step down, the secret donor could not have possibly intended to influence Muscat’s decisions. This was pure contempt for the public. It was a national embarrassment. Should the prime minister be accepting any donations at all from anybody let alone a secret donor?

The Australian ministerial code of ethics is explicit: ministers “must not seek or accept any kind of benefit or other valuable consideration either for themselves or for others”. But that’s Australia. And this is Malta where the only way for the standards committee to find an MP guilty is if they’ve done worse than Edward Zammit Lewis - and that’s no mean feat.

Take Rosianne Cutajar. She admitted receiving 9,000 euro from a man accused of money laundering, complicity to murder and other heinous crimes. Soon after taking the cash, she was vehemently opposing a resolution demanding an inquiry into Daphne Caruana Galizia’s murder at the European Commission parliamentary assembly a murder Cutajar’s donor is accused of. She allegedly collected 46,000 euro from the owner of the property being sold to Yorgen Fenech. This time even the Commissioner for Standards found her in breach of ethics. The Commissioner didn’t believe her - he was convinced she was lying. But Speaker Anglu Farrugia refused to accept the report, letting Cutajar off the hook. What was his excuse? He needed to be certain that Cutajar had breached ethics.

Anglu Farrugia, who chairs the Standards Committee, hasn’t got the foggiest clue what standards are. The Speaker wants certainty. But PM Morrison demanded Porter’s resignation because standards “are not just about actual conflicts, they’re about the obligation to avoid any perception of conflicts of interest”. Accepting thousands of euro from Yorgen Fenech and then fighting tooth and nail against a public inquiry into Caruana Galizia’s murder is not just a perception of conflict of interest. It is the most shocking and contemptuous disdain for basic decency.

If Anglu Farrugia chairing a standards committee weren’t farcical enough, we have Edward Zammit Lewis sitting on that committee. He sits in judgement on Rosianne Cutajar’s cosy relationship with Yorgen Fenech with whom Zammit Lewis initially claimed he had no relationship, only to change his mind and concede that they were friends. Slightly difficult to deny it after hundreds of messages between them were leaked. Even more difficult to deny after admitting having been on Fenech’s yacht, enjoying his lavish hospitality in the Evian les Bains Hilton, sharing dinners and soliciting employment opportunities. Impossible to deny when that close relationship was kept up until Fenech’s arrest. And Zammit Lewis is our Justice Minister.

These are not standards. This is flagrant trampling of basic democratic norms. This is not normal. At least not in a European Union state. This is deeply damaging to Malta’s already tattered reputation. It amplifies the stereotype of Malta as an untrustworthy, duplicitous crooked nation with more in common with a Mafia-infested village than a European Union state.

No wonder our European counterparts shudder as they watch in disbelief Malta’s shameless contempt for basic decency.