[WATCH] Rebecca Buttigieg: ‘We changed this country’s social tapestry in just 10 years’

Rebecca Buttigieg believes the Labour government still has fire in its belly to continue carrying out social reforms as it has done over the past 10 years.

The parliamentary secretary for equality and reforms says the government’s bold reform to regularise cannabis use is still a works in progress.

She says there is an ongoing evaluation of the cannabis reform and government is studying the possibility of allowing users to smoke inside the associations to minimise the need of people to smoke outdoors, which is illegal.

She also tells me that next year she will be publishing a White Paper on euthanasia, which was an electoral pledge.

I sit down with Buttigieg in her Valletta office which has a playpen inside it for when her seven-month-old baby accompanies her to work. In the small talk before the interview gets underway, we discuss the difficulties of juggling family life and work. Later in the interview she tells me her experience with motherhood has opened her eyes to certain issues she was unaware of.

“In parliament we do not have a breastfeeding room,” she says when I ask about the effectiveness of the higher number of women MPs in the aftermath of the gender parity mechanism used in the last election. “This is an issue that women MPs would raise and we are putting pressure.”

Pressed on how effective women MPs have been, Buttigieg says today there are many more women chairing parliamentary committees than there were before but she believes it is still too early to gauge the impact of the mechanism. “We have to see in the next election whether people will vote for women; whether women will be able to reach the 40% threshold without the mechanism being used.”

Just out of the 16 days of activism against domestic violence, I ask Buttigieg about the phenomenon. She says Maltese society is still too patriarchal and more needs to be done at a cultural and educational level.

“As a government we have implemented most of the recommendations proposed by the Valenzia Report but we still have a lot more to do because it is never enough,” she tells me.

On electronic tagging, the parliamentary debate on the law that will make its introduction possible will continue in January but she is careful not to commit on a timeframe for eventual implementation. “As soon as possible… but we also have to be sure that we have the resources to implement the system because it would be irresponsible to give victims a false sense of safety,” she says.

The following is an excerpt of the interview.

The full interview can also be viewed on Facebook and Spotify.

Are members of the judiciary sensitive enough when handling cases of domestic violence?

The sensitivity is there and we have seen improvements. When you have magistrates who are focussed on these cases, you get people who understand better the realities associated with domestic violence. We need more sensitivity not just in court but even in society… you get people who remark on the fact that a victim came forward with their report after many years, or a rape victim who is questioned over how she was dressed; this constant victim blaming and attempts to poke holes in a victim’s story necessitates greater awareness on how difficult it is for a victim to search for help and find a support network. As a government we have invested in this aspect. We have more social workers who are working hand in hand with the police when a victim goes to report at the domestic violence hub; we also have a victim support agency. Just a year ago we introduced a law that empowers a person to check whether her partner has any precedents in domestic violence…

Electronic tagging is deemed to be crucial by all people who work in this field because it provides real-time monitoring of court-imposed protection orders. What stage has the process come to?

We have started debating it in parliament…

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When will we physically see the system implemented?

As soon as possible… There are certain sensitivities such as privacy issues concerning the victims. As a government we also have to make sure that when we introduce such a system, we have the necessary resources to make it work. It would be irresponsible if we roll out a system that does not have the resources to back it up because it would be giving victims a false sense of safety, which is something I do not wish to see.

The Labour government has since 2013 introduced several progressive social reforms. However, I feel the government’s appetite for change is waning.

I do not agree with you. This government carried out many reforms in just a 10-year span… We reformed this country’s social tapestry. Who would have ever thought that after this country voted for divorce in 2011, we would be at the top of the rights index for LGBTIQ+ persons just 10 years later. We did a lot and we are continuing our work in this regard. The reform concerning the responsible use of cannabis did not stop at approving the law. We are implementing it…

I will come to the cannabis reform but before that, what happened to the proposed equality law that started being debated in the last legislature but was not concluded; it found itself in the 2022 manifesto and last year the Prime Minister said it will be put back on government’s agenda and yet nothing has come of it?

A lot of work is underway on this law. The last time this law was tabled in parliament it raised a lot of interesting controversy on the meaning of equality. My job is to take stock of all the discussions that took place in the last legislature but more importantly is to chart a way forward. At an EU level there was a debate on the standards that equality bodies should adhere to and it was wise of us as a government to follow the debate in Europe so that when we introduce the law domestically it will be in line with what the European Commission is proposing. Now that the EU law has been adopted, we want to move forward. But in view of the concerns raised in the last legislature I also have to make sure that stakeholders are consulted. Discussions are underway. My interest is not simply tabling a law in parliament but ensuring it will be implemented eventually.

[…]

Are you risking arriving at the end of the legislature without the law having passed again?

A lot of discussions are underway. This is not any other law that depends only on myself. It is a law that caused controversy and today we also have the EU guidelines to follow but we are committed to implement this [electoral] promise.

One of the electoral promises is euthanasia but more than two years into the legislature we heard nothing about it. Will the government see this pledge through?

This is another important reform… it touches on human life. A lot of work happens in the background when drafting a law like this and work on this pledge has started. I am looking forward to discuss this work next year when I will be issuing a White Paper for public consultation that lists the principles by which the government wants to abide. This is a sensitive discussion. I will not be a wise politician if I do not do my homework and study existing legislation in other countries. Across Europe this is a controversial subject and there aren’t many countries that have such laws in place. Even if such a law exists elsewhere it does not automatically mean that it makes sense for Malta. Only recently, a debate took place in the UK parliament [on assisted dying] and I followed it assiduously and there are aspects I believe we can adopt eventually in our law. I look forward to a mature discussion on the issue that is based on facts… Our aim is to give the person passing through a lot of suffering the chance to make their own choices about themselves. But we are not just studying but also talking to people because after all this deals with human stories. I look forward to sit down once again for a discussion when we issue the White Paper.

Does the government already have an idea where it wants to go with such a law or is it open to any eventuality? In the UK the approved law is restricted to persons who are terminally ill, so someone who has a degenerative disease cannot opt for assisted dying. This is not the case in other countries.

The aim of the White Paper is to create a discussion as promised in our manifesto. We are open to any discussion… we have to listen to people, which is why we will be issuing a White Paper.

[…]

Should the Labour Party have an internal discussion to determine whether abortion should be in the next electoral manifesto?

On reforms like these we as politicians require an electoral mandate. Today, the Labour Party does not have a mandate to implement such a reform. But if you were to ask me, Rebecca, a young person, a woman who has just become a mother, I look at life with a different perspective. I believe there are many things that we need to discuss but it has to be a serious discussion. The sour taste I was left with after that experience [the abortion debate, last year] was the result of the misinformation peddled on the government’s intention to reform the law. I expected people to be against the reform but I also expected to debate ideas. Experience showed us otherwise. What I wish to see at a national level, not only at party level, is to have a mature, serious debate on facts and not fantasy. Unfortunately, there is still too much misinformation and scaremongering on this subject… we need to have a debate that does not vilify women who have the courage to come forward and share their experience.

I agree with you… but within the Labour Party I would expect a serious debate to take place that would eventually inform the public discussion.

I believe the party should have a serious debate that is pushed by one of its wings, whether this is Nisa Laburisti or Zghazagh Laburisti, that leads to a decision on where we would like to take the country…