Below follows the May Day message from the GSD Leader Keith Azopardi:

For workers and for business this is a Government that says one thing and then does another. It was rich to see Mr  Picardo sitting close to Ms Arias Vasquez (as his heir apparent) in Barcelona lecture the world on how to deal with the  cost-of-living crisis when Mr Picardo’s colleagues have agreed that the taxpayer should pay for his own expensive  private legal challenge against the Openshaw Report findings. Gibraltar does not need lessons on tightening the belt  from a Government that asks you to underwrite the Chief Minister’s private legal expenses!  

Businesses who complain about lack of preparedness or information in the face of the Treaty are now told by the  Minister for Business, Ms Arias-Vasquez, that the Guidance on Treaty related administrative arrangements for business  will be published on 1 June. This is proof positive that the Government was not ready to have properly implemented and guided affected businesses on 10 April. Certainly the repeated calls for information from an increasingly frustrated  business sector hardly suggests that they were. 

As we celebrate May Day and the role of workers and businesses as job-creation and wealth centres in our economy  it is clear that a more strategic approach to our economy and public spending is needed. 

One that plans better. After all the Government said they were 0.01% away from a Treaty deal in September 2023  (when it asked you to support them at the last election). If that was not a con they should have planned better because  at least by then they must have had 99.99% of the detail on their own logic. Or at least planned better from June 2025  (almost 11 months ago) when it announced that a political deal had been struck. Or at least done so from December  2025 – five months ago – when the legal negotiations had closed. Why has it not been possible to prepare the proper  information that businesses or citizens are clamouring for in all that time? Why is Gibraltar having to put up with this  broken approach to planning for the serious economic impact of this new Treaty? And that broken approach to  strategic planning is just one of a number of examples. 

We also need an approach that spends better. That makes sure that waste and abuse are cut and acted against.  Because that cheats the taxpayer, means that there is less money for investment in public services or less money for  pay rises, business assistance or job creation. The various and successive reports of the Principal Auditor have shown  the tip of this mammoth financial governance iceberg which can only be tackled with a change of Government. The  GSLP/Libs are so wedded to their creed of opacity with your money that things will not really change till they leave  office. It was for that reason that instead of undertaking real reforms they turned on the Principal Auditor for grassing  them up with these inconvenient truths.  

You are working very hard to be let down so badly in this way. 

At some point in the next year we will be treated to the charade of the passing of the GSLP baton. But it will be only  that. A charade. There will be no change. The new leader (whoever that is) has backed Mr Picardo remaining in office  despite findings that he acted in a grossly improper way and attempted to interfere in a criminal investigation. The  new leader (whoever that is) also ganged up shamelessly on the principal auditor. The baton will pass but to a person  who represents the current way of doing things lock, stock and barrel.

Change when it comes at the ballot box will be a tide of fresh air sweeping through Gibraltar. So we can truly tackle all  those issues that affect you and your families. On behalf of myself and my colleagues I wish you all an enjoyable and  happy May Day with your families.