Helena Dalli says PN wants to take country backwards

Only a Labour government can guarantee for more civil rights, Equality Minister Helena Dalli said, emphasising on a declaration made by PN leadership hopeful Chris Said.

The Gozitan MP said that if elected PN leader, he will see the re-introduction of the use of “mother and father” in the marriage laws which were recently updated to remove any reference to gender.

In a press conference, Dalli said in the PN there are elements who want to reverse all the good that the Labour government has worked for in terms of civil rights. Chris Said was in Parliament when the vote was taken, but did not express his views on the matter as he has done now, she said.

Chris Said, when he was minister, had submitted a bill on cohabitation that nobody accepted, and had insisted that couples of the same sex should not be called a family.

She said that Edwin Vassallo, who voted against the marriage law amendments, is supporting Chris Said while another PN leadership contender, Adrian Delia, will give a free vote on matters of conscience which means that he will avoid taking a stand.

Malta has made great strides forward that have been recognised on an international level, but what PN exponents are saying shows that the PN is not convinced of these decisions and will take the country backwards.

The press conference was also addressed by Clayton Cutajar from Equality Labour.

Reacting, Chris Said said that, unlike the Labour Party, he was not ashamed of using the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’, and would re-introducing the terminology back into the marriage act, alongside the ‘parent’ definition introduced lately in the bill.

He insisted that a PN-led administration would take nothing away from what has been legislated recently. “Whilst retaining all the rights given to LGBTIQ couples, the new bill proposed by a nationalist administration would re-introduce the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ terms alongside the existing ‘parent’ term for those who wish to retain a more generic definition.”

Said asked why Helena Dalli was so worried about out introducing the ‘mother’ and ‘father’ terms whilst retaining the rest of the bill intact as approved.