Chief Minister’s Address to Parliament
This is the full text of the Chief Minister’s address to Parliament at the start of this morning’s session:
Mr Speaker
The time since this Parliament last met has been one that will talked of for many years.
This has been a time that will be referred to in our history for generations to come.
When we adjourned sine die last time, my final words to the Parliament then were that ‘the community should brace itself’.
It is quite something that the senior, elected, political leader of this community had to use those words, in peace time, in this House.
But that is where we were on the 20th of March, Mr Speaker.
We knew that we are as ready as possible then for the arrival of a wave of COVID 19.
We knew we had to hope for the best.
And we knew we were prepared for the worst.
But even in that situation we were clear: we did not want to lose any Gibraltarian or any resident of Gibraltar to the Coronavirus.
And now we know we have not.
I should just say, Mr Speaker, that unfortunately, we are aware of at least one case in which a Gibraltarian was lost to COVID away from Gibraltar.
It is no consolation for us that one of our people has succumb to the virus even if this was far from our shores.
And as we left this place in mid March, Mr Speaker, the Government had come before the House in high gear.
We left to move into even higher gear.
Probably the highest gear in which a Government has had to operate in the period of civilian Government in Gibraltar.
And I make no apology Mr Speaker for again praising the public sector for the way it has reacted to the call for action we had cause to undertake.
Indeed, Mr Speaker, I want to tell the House that the reaction of Gibraltar to this crisis has been exemplary.
And it is not just us who say so.
Advisors to the World Health Organisation have said so.
And the proof of that is not in a speech, in an argument or in any metaphysical aspect. It is in the pudding of reality.
In the absence of casualties to date from the virus.
It is in the fact that our health services were not overwhelmed.
And it is in the extraordinarily low numbers of infections we have seen reported amongst the resident population.
Even now, as we are doing more random testing than most places in the world, we are seeing almost no community transmissions.
Yet in those early days, as we braced, we had no crystal ball to point us to this extraordinary success to date.
In fact, we have every indicator pointing in the direction of massive potential casualties.
We have every reason to fear that we might have lost many of our most loved ones, in particular in the vulnerable demographic sectors.
And we had every reason to work harder than ever to preserve the lives of our fellow countrymen. Life was turned upside down.
First, restaurants and bars were closed from 8pm.
No mean feat as we did that on a Friday afternoon. Yet we saw all comply.
The importance of complying, of working for team Gibraltar rather than for the personal profit at stake, was clear to every operator.
All responded admirably despite the likelihood of huge financial losses as a result. The Cabinet met over the weekend with the Leader of the Opposition present. We resolved to pass regulations to confine our over 70s.
We declared a Major Incident and established tiers of command and reporting. We closed catering establishments completely.
We introduced a daily text message from the Government to ensure that the issue of the numbers of infections was not one for unhinged speculation on social media.
That continues to this day and has proven the reliable index of numbers for our people when it comes to the prevalence of the virus in our community.
Thank you to Gibtelecom for that excellent work.
We introduced a daily press conference where these numbers were provided to the public and broadcast to the whole nation by the national broadcaster GBC.
Thank you to the men and women of GBC for really stepping up.
A daily live press conference was an unimaginable standard for us all before this emergency.
We achieved it.
Newspapers stepped up and introduced free deliveries for the over 70s in government elderly housing.
Thank you to them too for the information and entertainment they will have provided.
I personally record the thanks of the people of Gibraltar to editor Brian Reyes of the Gibraltar Chronicle and Joe Garcia Snr of Panorama for this magnificent initiative.
So everyone was working together.
Clubbing together to get through this is a way that was designed to ensure we were all rowing in the same direction.
Undistracted from the main matter at hand.
We developed a Nightingale hospital ward from scratch.
Particular thanks to Stuart Bensadon and his team for the work they did on that as well as to the Royal Gibraltar Regiment.
We opened a new ICU, which is mercifully now closing.
And we were on the cusp of a Government of National Unity.
That is worth just pausing over in this place.
The enormity of what we were facing was such, that we were both ready to consider that.
Today, in the sunny uplands of late May, with no casualties to COVID, some might not understand how we even considered that.
But look at where we were.
We were looking at estimates of hundred or of thousands of Gibraltar dead in a period of a few short weeks or months.
We had to develop the capability to bury mass numbers of people.
We had to develop a new morgue.
We had to stop religious worship.
And Mr Speaker, on the 23rd March we locked down our whole population.
We restricted civil liberties in a way I would never have wished to but which became essential. We restricted rights that I have sworn an oath to protect.
We restricted the operation of those parts of our Constitution which we have fought through over the decades as the civilian inhabitants of this once military fortress.
But it had to be done.
And our people have almost universally understood and accepted that.
This is the first time in our history that the civilian authorities of Gibraltar have restricted the movement of Gibraltarians in Gibraltar.
So it was in that dramatic developing context that the two historic political rivals, the GSLP Liberals and the GSD downed political weapons.
We worked together.
I understood the importance of reaching out to my opposite number on the opposition benches.
The Hon Leader of the Opposition understood the importance of accepting our call.
If the worst of the events we had been told to expect had come to pass, we would today likely be sitting in Government together.
I had cleared with His Excellency the Governor and had communicated to the Leader of the Opposition that a proper interpretation of the Constitution permitted the appointment of ten ministers alongside a Chief Minister.
I was therefore able to bring Mr Azopardi in as a Minister without having to remove one of the existing portfolio holders.
We were close.
But in the end it was happily not necessary.
Not because we would not have been able to work together.
But because we did not see the worst materialise.
And we found a way of working together without that final step.
We were, I think, both pleased to have been able to avoid crossing that rubicon.
But this is an illustration of just how dangerous the position potentially was.
A GSLP Chief Minister was considering offering executive responsibility in a GSLP Liberal government to a GSD leader – and to boot to one of the team of 1996.
It saddens me when I read ill-informed comment by a very few ill-informed commentators that suggest that this has been a low period for our democracy.
The opposite is true and anyone who understands the detail of democracy understands that it requires moments of unity and not that in key moments people should continue to oppose for the sake of it as if that were a necessary mark or criteria for democracy.
There is time for all that. There is also time for unity.
I thank honourable members opposite for their support and the Honourable the Leader of the Opposition also.
I invited him to address our people alongside me in a Press Conference at No6 Convent Place in a fitting, historic, visual representation of the unity that we achieved in the common front we have maintained.
That moment I think is one that will live on in the political history of our nation for many generations as it was as unlikely before as it was unprecedented.
As I said at the last meeting, we must try to galvanise the spirit of cooperation going forward if only to purge our debate of the more personal reflections we have seen in the past.
But I am a realist too.
Let’s see whether we can at least not call each other names for the next few hours!
And as the Government and the Opposition worked together, so did so many other sectors.
Mr Speaker the Covid Economic Liaison and Advisory Council which I established as a result of the emergency budget we brought to this house at the last session has included representatives of sometimes competing interests.
Unions and business representative organisations have worked together to advise the government in way that has been selfless.
CELAC meetings are not short, but they have been attended assiduously by the members of the representative organisations.
Each as batted for their organisations but with a GIBRALTAR FIRST attitude which is commendable and which I refer to this House for that reason.
I thank all the members of that committee on behalf of the government and people of Gibraltar.
They helped us to develop our measures for business and our BEAT COVID Measures to put a shield around employees in this difficult time.
We were able to agree these also with the Leader of the Opposition and the Hon Mr Clinton. And the machinery of Government delivered on these in a remarkable way.
Publishing regulations and guidance notes in record time and translated into various relevant languages.
A remarkable effort led by the Financial Secretary, the Commissioner of Income Tax, the Director of Employment and the Accountant General.
Their teams have been better than superb, as have our Government Law Offices.
In this time, Mr Speaker, I have met with the Prime Minster and spoken to the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Europe.
The latter on a number of occasions.
I have spoken also to the Spanish Ministers for the Interior, and to the Spanish Foreign Secretary as well as to the President of the Junta de Andalucia.
Political contact has been fluid.
And the frontier has not been a choke point in a manner that has been designed to prejudice Gibraltar as it might have been in the past.
That too is an enormous success.
And so, now, as we reflect on where we are, how we managed to get here and how we will move forward, it is clear that there is much now to do.
We are already working on a new UNLOCK THE ROCK.
A second document from the RESTART AND RECOVER TASK FORCE which will be issued in early July and will deal with the process to come from the 1st of August.
I anticipate a final part to the UNLOCK THE ROCK series will be the third instalment and it will be for the late summer and autumn and from TASK FORCE FUTURE.
We will have to consider together how we deal with the extended financial year which is now programmed to run to the end of September.
And we will shortly be announcing how we propose to continue to support businesses and individuals beyond the 30th June.
I do not, however, want to anticipate questions on the order paper on the BEAT Measures.
Now the work begins, Mr. Speaker, to develop those economic support mechanisms for all our businesses and to continue to try and see as low a set of casualties to unemployment as possible.
It is going to be difficult, Mr. Speaker, and the work that CELAC is doing now is going to be almost as important as the work that it has done and I do hope that we will be able to move forward together in this house on those issues.
I expect to have feedback from CELAC on a number of new proposals by the end of this week and then I expect to be able to sit down with the Leader of the Opposition and Mr. Clinton to consult them on those new proposed measures.
Those will be the measures that go beyond the 30th of June, the period for which we have agreed the BEAT COVID mechanisms.
Mr. Speaker, what is ahead of us might be even more daunting than what is now behind us. There is an opportunity for a new future, a new future that will require courage and it will require bravery. It will be very easy to fall on the old ways.
To pander to the popular and to not take the steps that are the right steps for our community. We are not elected to pander to the popular.
Mr. Speaker, we need to move away from that which is just comfortable and we need to stretch ourselves. Perhaps we have stretch ourselves more than anybody expected already, in the way that we beat our political weapons into ploughshares and delivered the best of each of us in the past 12 weeks.
There is an opportunity to do that. There is a requirement to do that. Gibraltar, I think, is clamouring for us to do that as we go forward in this House.
Mr. Speaker, before I sit down, it is incumbent on me to put on the record of this House the solidarity of the People of Gibraltar with those nations around us that have lost citizens to COVID 19.
And to those all around the world, whether it is in China where this began, in Italy, where we saw it explode in Europe, in our neighbouring Spain, or indeed, Mr Speaker, in the United Kingdom or in Morocco, everywhere in the world that has suffered loss to COVID must loss to cope with must understand that they have the solidarity of this small nation that has not to date lost anyone to COVID.
Mr Speaker, the Hon Minister Licudi when he was in your chair as we rose to adjourn sine die told us last time that COVID was the battle we faced and it was a battle we will win.
Twelve weeks on, Mr Speaker we are ahead on points.
