WATCH | Darren Carabott: ‘Don’t let others decide for you’

Darren Carabott appeals to non-voters not to let others decide for them what Malta’s fate for the next five years will be. 

The appeal comes in the wake of surveys showing that the number of people saying they will not vote is on the increase. 

“I hope we see a change in this election because we’ve witnessed an increase in the number of people who don’t vote,” Carabott tells me when I ask about disinterested or angry voters, who want to abstain. 

I sit down with Carabott, a week before Malta goes to vote, and ask about some of the PN’s proposals that fall within his remit that covers home affairs. 

Carabott defends the proposal to split Identità and create two one-stop shops—one focussed on services for Maltese citizens and another for third country nationals and their employers. He insists that reducing bureaucracy doesn’t mean work permits will all be accepted. 

He then ties this to the PN’s proposed population authority, explaining it have the remit to make forecasts on Malta’s future labour market needs. 

Carabott rejects the notion that his party’s proposal to create a taskforce made up of the police and army to tackle illegal immigration among other problems, plays into the xenophobic sentiment so evident throughout this campaign. 

The following is an excerpt from the interview 

You’re proposing to cut bureaucracy for employers wishing to employ third-country nationals. But we know that these are currently subject to, for instance, checks on whether or not the sector needs foreign workers. Will this be scrapped? What will change exactly? 

Today, if you apply to get a foreign worker, you are left in the dark for a long time, especially since the introduction of the Labour Migration Policy. There have been many appeals and delays in this process. There is a bureaucracy problem. 

Part of it comes from the fact that the employer gets a reply saying that the labour market test on the request for a foreign worker to come to Malta was not satisfied, without an explanation. What is the labour market test? Why don’t we know what the test entails? 

We are saying that if the PN is elected to government, employers will be given a yes or no answer and an explanation… 

We’ll have full visibility through the population authority. If the people trust a new PN government, for the first time ever, we’ll have an authority responsible for the population.  

And will this authority focus mostly on studies? 

No. We would have an authority with three goals, one of them would be immediate, and the other two would be for the long term. The first step is to do what hasn’t been done in the past 13 years and that is to have a clear sector-specific picture of what we have in the country. 

How many journalists do we have? How many lawyers do we have? They say we have too many, but joking aside, let’s look at the financial sector, maritime sector, educational sector, you name it. How many people do we need? We’re saying that we also want information on employees that are able to switch between sectors, so we would have an internal shift in the country rather than importing workers from abroad… 

The second aspect is the Malta Population Levels Plan that will have sector-specific forecasting on the current workforce, how many people will retire from each sector, how many people will graduate and enter the workforce, among other things… 

So, the authority will have a plan for what we need, how many Maltese workers we have, and how many foreign workers are needed. 

The same authority will have a national capacity plan to address the main issues that crop up when speaking about overpopulation, mainly the demand on infrastructure. The authority will offer policy direction… 

Isn’t there a contradiction when speaking about this authority and the one-stop shops we mentioned previously? You want to cut bureaucracy but at the same time you’re saying let’s be cautious. 

Slashing bureaucracy doesn’t mean all applications will be accepted… It means that employers won’t be left hanging. We’ll cut fees and cut the time it takes for the entity to make a decision… 

Another proposal in your remit is the taskforce between the police and army to address foreigners illegally staying in Malta. For me this conjures images of ICE-style raids in the US. How will this taskforce work? Will it see a foreign-run grocery shop and investigate? 

Checking to see that someone is here regularly doesn’t mean putting on a show. It’s a duty. I don’t think anyone really wants to head in the direction of the US. The task force will tackle four issues: Drug trafficking, human trafficking, irregular immigrants, and foreigners who are found guilty of crime. Half of the prison population is made up of foreigners… 

We have consulted with experts. These issues are of great concern… I think everyone enjoys justice and having the law enforced. 

We’ve clearly seen the xenophobic and even racist sentiment out there during this campaign. Do you fear that you’ll be playing into this sentiment? 

A PN government, like any other government I hope, would not tolerate racism or xenophobia… but enjoying order and discipline is another thing. Addressing issues that are affecting people out there is a good thing. There are people who are scared; so, isn’t such a task force a good thing? I cannot understand the correlation between the taskforce and xenophobia. 

A few days ago, when asked about the development of a new mosque, Alex Borg used national identity to justify his position against it. Are you comfortable with this argument that a mosque could pose a risk to national identity? 

We are in a state where we need to safeguard Maltese identity, and I don’t say this in a scaremongering way. One of our proposals is to have client-facing foreign workers learn Maltese within a year since arriving in Malta. Through that we’re promoting our language, and we have many proposals on our identity. 

I agree with Alex Borg’s argument. We are a Roman Catholic country [as identified in the Constitution] but of course everyone has a fundamental human right to practice any religion…  

The PN and PL have a challenge to get non-voters to vote. How worried is the PN on this? 

There are people who are undecided and are still thinking things over. There are those who have decided and don’t want to say what they’ll do. But there is a group of people who are uninterested in voting. 

I encourage the behaviour of the first group of people because they’ll be voting critically. I understand the second group of people, who might be employed in the public sector or might have any other reason not to share their intention. 

When it comes to the abstainers, this is where Malta is stuck. I hope we see a change in this election because we’ve been seeing an increase in the number of people who don’t vote… Don’t let others decide your children’s future or the future of our country. We plan for week-long holidays but we’re going to live in Malta for years.