Minimum wage freeze would put quality of life in deep freeze - PM

It was clear that the Labour leader’s proposal to freeze the minimum wage had been considered because only a few days earlier Labour MEP Edward Scicluna had praised the Mintoff style of economics, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said this morning. Speaking during a pre-recorded interview on Radio 101, Dr Gonzi said that that Mr Mintoff used to believe in keeping the cost of living stable and not increasing wages. He had frozen wages and this was Dr Muscat’s reasoning. Dr Gonzi said that it seemed that Labour wanted to find the money for its promises through the freezing of the minimum wage and the fact that Dr Muscat was now saying that COLA increases would continue to be paid out as usual was an excuse and showed that he did not even know his own policies. Dr Muscat, Dr Gonzi said, was not competent to be Opposition leader, let alone Prime Minister. He said that to freeze the minimum wage would put quality of life in deep freeze and although Dr Muscat claimed that what you see is what you get with Labour, reality was the compete opposite because it took him less than 24 hours to start trying to get out of his statement on the minimum wage. Dr Gonzi noted that, in Parliament, Dr...