When solemn election promises can be broken without even a pretence of explanation parliamentary democracy is in a sad, sad state. So it is in Australia now that Julia Gillard has confirmed that her word means nothing. Before the last election she vowed that there would be no carbon tax if she became Prime Minister. Today she announced one.
Ms Gillard now stands exposed as one of the great political liars of all times. She is not a woman to be trusted.
If and when she leads the Labor Party into an election again we should all ignore everything she says.
The real tragedy is that the current alternative Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is every bit as untrustworthy.
46 Comments
Two of the greatest political liars of all times! What are the odds. Either that, or a small amount of hyperbole.
Come on Rich. You, if anyone, would know that no politician will advocate a major new tax during and election – and then win. Hewson tried it an lost the unloseable election. Howard flatly denied he’d ever, ever impose a Consumption Tax. Rudd might have promised an emissions trading scheme, but no-one had a clue what it was in 2007 and fighting climate change seemed like the right thing to do. It still is. Did you never advise politicians to take the convenient way out and deny something they were intent on doing – like floating the dollar?
I’m not sure if it’s hyperbole, or just too much scotch Bilbo.
But it leaves me wondering just what Richard thinks of the policies.
(Rather than the personalities.)
Making a *genuine* start to reducing carbon emissions, seems a little more important than continuing on a doomed path because of a foolish pre-election soundbite.
That Julia is a liar is evident from her words.
What evidence have you, though, for saying “Tony Abbott, is every bit as untrustworthy”?
Businesses with taxable incomes in excess of $5 million, facing a temporary small levy to fund his parental leave scheme might concur but either way its hardly in Gillard’s league.
Unlike the fawning leftist MSM however you didn’t stoop to giving her pass.
H/t
The fawning leftist MSM…er, I think Mr JK is, may I say with the greatest respect, off his rocker. As someone who actually worked in the MSM, I can honestly say that with the exception of the ABC and SBS in that genre, leftist is the last thing you’d wanna be in the MSM. I know the ABC has allegedly
I wouldn’t vote for either of them but whilst the PM makes my blood boil, Mr AA makes my skin crawl and feel like it is being nibbled by creatures in the grave.
Frankly, I thought Gillard would be bad, and she is disastrous, but Abbott I think would render this country down the path of deep division, and do so wanting it to happen in the mould of many a despot we pour scorn on overseas and much worse than Fraser who at least knew the government at the time had lost the support of the majority of the population.
Abbott maybe a lot of things, BUT Gillard has gone far further with this deliberate lie to the Australian people to help her win office. How about a similar example of Abbott doing this please.
Richard, it’s called reality. In order to form a Government Gillard had to alter some of what she pledged at the election to accord with what the Greens and cross-benchers, the partners in the minority government, pledged. This is a reflection of the will of the people who delivered a parliament without a single majority party.
Are you suggesting the the Greens, ALP, Liberals and crossbenchers all dig their heels in and form no government at all? Would that really be a better option? Are you honestly suggesting that the kind of illogical intransigence that Wilkie is showing over the gambling pre-commitment issue is prefferable?
Honestly, The Stump is by far the worst part of Crikey, at least in its current incarnation. It’s either material from elsewhere (often not properly attributed or linked to when the original online version exists), or commentary of the shallowest, knee-jerk form.
Look after your brand Crikey!
Bogdanovist – Alter? is this the new word for LIE? You’ve been listening to Julia too much.
I guess JamesK is right (as opposed to Right) for once. None of Abbott’s lies have had consequences for anyone other than himself.
JamesK, I hear a lot about the leftist MSM, can you please point me in its direction?
This week, for examle, we’ve had:
- The Australian printing out and out lies about a Crikey blog comment.
- A debate around 2GB running a competition on asylum seeker corpses.
- Lachlan Murdoch taking up the big chair at Channel 10.
- Mr Abbott’s comment about Kiwis not being foreigners going unchallenged.
This is leftist?
Would you prefer lies such as ‘the Coalition is totally committed to multiculturalism’?
Abbotts lies have no consequences for anyone other than himself ? His lie that he supports non discrimination in immigration while dog whistling the Hansonites. His lie that he is against levies while having a parental scheme that uses a levy. His lie that Gillard has lied when he would have sold his soul to gain the office of PM. The PM is acknowledging real politik just as Abbott would have to in the same position. If the libs and nats had been able to get the cross benchers to form a government it would be on the proviso that some accommodations were forthcoming. Howard had to drop the GST on fresh food to get the Democrats to pass the legislation in the senate. Its called politics and getting a result. If Abbotts lies have no effect then it can be mean he is not an alternative PM. After the lying rodent can the lie accusation be thrown at anyone ?
OK, there may be various rationalisations for it, such as JG leading a minority govt and questioining whether she knew at the time she ruled out a carbon tax that she would be in this position …
But the bigger point is that this kind of gotcha crap by the OP and other commentators is an impediment to evidence-based policy. If pollies always have to be consistent with previous statements then how can they ever change their minds in face of new facts or circumstances?
The media focus should be on whether the proposed carbon price policy has merit, not whether JG did or didn’t rule one out previously. But hey, that requires a bit of brainwork and research, much easier to bang on about trustworthiness and horse race shite instead.
Saith John Maynard Keynes :
“When the facts change I change my mind, what do you do, sir?”
A sad day for Democracy? Get over it! Labor went in with their “new-left” don’t upset anyone agenda, and now they’re in coalition with the Greens and some independents who wan’t to get something done. And they’re in coalition because enough voters were sick of inaction, especially on climate change. Precisely what part of this is not democracy?? It doesn’t matter what the PM promised, her party did not get elected in their own right, and therefore they cannot govern in their own right. Come on Farmer, you know that.
Settle, Geomac, I was making a rhetorical point.
Gillard pre-election to the Australian people – “There will not be a carbon tax under a Government I lead.”
You can spin it anyway you like geomac, doesn’t change Gillards disgraceful lie.
Obviously ‘Independently Thinking’ is neither.
Perhaps SBS, Fairfax and your ABC is fair and balanced from Son of fore’s perspective but nothing he cites is even prima facie evidence of conservative bias if that indeed is what he was so pathetically trying to suggest.
Perhaps IT also believes that Paul Bongiorno, Mark Riley, Kerry O’ Brien, Tony Jones, Peter Hartcher, Phil Coorey, Katharine Murphy, Oleaginous Oaksey, Lenore Taylor, Malcolm Farr and Michelle Grattan, all supposedly ‘journalists’ not op-ed writers, don’t just ever criticise Labor only from the left?
Perhaps Sof is so far deluded that he even stoops to suspend disbelief at the ludicrous assertion that George Negus, much loved by equally balanced Jonathan Holmes, is a reasonable and fair journalist………..
“Media Watch Dog on Fridays…is a sort of popular read in the Crikey office” said Crikey’s Andrew Crook on ABC 2 News Breakfast, 24 September 2010.
I suggest Sof and IT start their education every Friday (hey today!) here:
http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/media-watch-dog/
You are forgetting that she almost lost the election with the stupid promise not to have a price on carbon.
Before then she was a shoe in.
I have had a gutful of the lieberals whining about frigging tax, there are only 3 letters need to be quoted G S T.
Hi JamesK
Actually, all I was pathetically trying to do was ask a question and was deluded so far as to think I’d get some information.
I guess I got the info … and a wee bit more! Have a nice weekend.
Thank you Sof. And…you too…. have a nice day…
Apparently you are confused as to whether you are deluded or not.
Don’t be!
If you were deluded, how would you realise without a fearless and honest disciplined examination?
Since you were so grateful for the information, I will refer you one more:
http://asiancorrespondent.com/39396/abc-onlines-election-bias-the-final-results/
It’s not the lies that bother me. It’s Gillard’s sheer banality. Her lack of elementary knowledge. And that awful tone-deaf voice…
What a goose-”now stands exposed as one of the great political liars of all times. She is not a woman to be trusted.”
Surely John Howard who took this country into a war on a pack of lies- a war in which tens of thousands of innocent people have died could be considered to be one of the greatest policitcal liars.
The hate directed at Gillard is bizarre.
So Julia has been in the job for a few months and she is already a failure. Total BS. So she lied. Yawn. She appears to be beginning to get her act together what with her comments about multiculturism and now climate change. Great. Now lets move into the future at long last.
Thanks JamesK
Reading my first post it looks a tad antagonistic, apologies for that, I’m just after some info.
Can I ask your thoughts on this? http://www.theworldobserver.com.au/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=4757
I’m not a great observer of media here, genuinely after some information.
For those Howard Haters, at least Howard had the political conviction to take his altered stance on GST to the electorate and gave Australians the opportunity to vote for it, thereby giving him a proper mandate in his next term!
Gillard has outrightly lied to us & has indicated it will be implemented before the next election and when the Greens hold the balance of power in the upper house.
What a disgrace, this will be one of the biggest changes to Australia’s tax history and it has come about because of ONE voted Green minister in parliament.
It is not about whether you believe in climate change, or how to tackle it, but the pure deceit that this person has inflicted on us.
If she held such strong views on climate change, then she should have the conviction to take it to the last election.
Though considering how she slimed into power and lied to members of her own party, then why should we be so surprised.
For those who strongly believe in climate action, dont hold your breath.
Remember, it was her strong recommendation to dump the ETS before stealing Rudds job. And considering she did not have the firmness of belief to take a stance before the election, then consider her, ironically, a fairweather friend….literally.
What a sham this new ‘paradigm’ of politics we have today, where Christine Milne openly admits that the new tax has come about because of a power-sharing government…one in which the majority of Australians did NOT vote in…..
“When solemn election promises can be broken without even a pretence of explanation parliamentary democracy is in a sad, sad state.”
…
“By 1990 no child will live in poverty”
…
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you writing speeches for Hawkie back in ’87 Richard?
OK, JamesK, I shall produce some evidence – from the horse’s mouth so to speak.
“I know politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.
“Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.”
- Tony Abbott, May 17th 2010, ABC TV 7.30 Report
To list a few journos you don’t like doesn’t prove your point. I know one of them personally, despite being accused of being biased from both left and right is remarkably, and privately, a committed small-l Liberal voter.
Your POV is clearly very pro-conservative and you are entitled to it, but please don’t confuse your POV with being ‘normal’ or ‘right’.
And I am so sorry that being an independent so offends you. I know whatever I write will not change your mind, and vice versa.
As a word of warning, please do not read the Poll Bludger blog as the very pro-Labor majority of the posts may cause you harm.
@ Sof:
No question Sof, that, with minimal digging, you could actually supply quite a few “studies” from leftwing university “researchers” that “scientifically prove” the reverse of my assertion. Your reference, by the way, was weak.
Maurice Newman admitted a groupthink in ABC journalism and admonished his organisation to do better in a speech last year and gave the examples of reporting of the GFC and climate change.
There have been many admissions from insiders of liberal left bias at the Beeb over many years culminating in an admission by their director general Mark Thompson of a “massive bias to the left” at the BBC late last year:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/public-accounts/2010/09/licence-fee-bbc-thompson-bias.
It is notoriously difficult to ‘prove’ bias but you would need a hole in your head if you suggested that the front men of the main political programs on the ABC, Kerry O’Brien, Tony Jones and Barrie Cassidy were guilty of a conservative bias…….
@IT:
Given your overt bias, how dare you deign to deliver leftist condescending advice to me.
Furthermore, I reject your assertions about me. You don’t know me and you don’t have the evidence from my posts to make those assertions about me.
But evidence isn’t your strong suit, is it?
You are patently not independent, except perhaps, between your own ears.
Imo you write utter drivel.
By the by, your ‘gotcha’ quote of what Tony Abbott said is the truth.
The written word is more reliable than the spoken ……. wow! ….. who could doubt that well known fact …..unless that doubter was ignorant……. or p’haps an incoherent lefty?
JamesK
Why do I get the feeling that if I offered you an ice cream you’d rip my fckn head off and shove it down my useless pinko throat? (I suspect the smell of napalm reminds you of … victory, as well, but that’s another topic for another time.)
Just wondering, though, if Julia Gillard only said that there would be no carbon tax, while John Howard actually wrote that there would be no GST, who is morally stronger?
Wait before answering, just gotta get my helmet and flak jacket on…OK, go!
@ Sof
John Howard.
It’s not difficult.
In the first place, he sought a mandate and secondly he didn’t say he wouldn’t introduce a GST repeatedly along with Peter Costello in the two weeks before an election to get them over the line only for them both to change their minds a few weeks later……..
Apart from “Your reference, by the way, was weak”, I can’t see why you make the “rip my fckn head off” remark.
Was that the reason? If so, I’d suggest you may have ‘sensitivity issues’……
If you are serious about being concerned that your media may be misinforming you then I suggest you follow Tim Blair’ and Andrew Bolt’s blog postings on news bias, The Oz’s Cut & Paste and Mark Hendrickx’s abcnewswatch blog here and follow all their blog posts on instances of bias and follow up each of them yourself over several weeks.
Then follow Crikey’s or Poisonpen blogs on rightwing media bias and follow those up yourself.
Internationally follow James Taranto’s ‘Best of the Web” daily pieces in WSJ and Newsbusters blog in the USA
After a few weeks you’ll see it clearly.
Then the main problem isn’t misinformation because you’ll be able to read between the lines …… but actual non-reporting of news.
You’ll then need to seek alternate sources of news to in order to become informed.
Richard Farmer, for example, is a biased lefty but he does report international news that is not reported in our MSM.
The GST defence from the Howardistas fails because he lost the popular vote and because people voting for him assumed that the Dems would block both the G&St and the Telstra sale in the senate. Had the Dems said that they would pass these if Howard won, he would not have won. Howard got to play both sides of the street because those wanting Howard but no GST/Telstra sale felt safe voting for him and those who wanted these could too.
I should add, Richard Farmer, that telling a lie and breaking a promise are not at all the same thing. Gillard probably figured she’d either win outright (in which case she has an ETS) or lose outright, in which the terms of the promise are extinguished.
It’s unlikely anyone voted for the ALP based on no carbon tax but assuming there would be an ETS. Anyone who hated the former would also have hated the latter. Conversely, it’s quite likely that some people voted against the ALP because there was no carbon tax on offer. Some people really hated the idea of an ETS. I wasn’t one of them.
I didn’t vote for the ALP because, inter alia, those remarks reinforced my doubts she’d deliver an effective and explicit price on Co2.
I should add that the Abbottistas are estopped from complaining on this because they spent the entire time blurring the difference between an ETS and a carbon tax — behaving as if these were exactly the same thing. They can’t now say they are different when it suits them Mr Farmer.
Moreover, the Liberals have never accepted “mandate theory”. They felt fine introducing workchoices despite promising not to do so. They felt fine invading Afghanistan and Iraq without a mandate. They introduced new taxes without a mandate — the various levies we have had for example. And of course when the indies backed the ALP last year, they cried foul and said the PM had no mandate. It’s hypocritical for them to complain now that she has no mandate when they denied she had one before.
holy shit James K. You are so far into Wonderland, I don’t think you’re EVER getting back to Kansas.
I had to to laugh at this
the main problem isn’t misinformation
aaah… yes. it actually is. The “out of context to push an agenda” web ring that you put in your last post are kinda masters at it.
My advice to you is to stop going to those sites for at least a few weeks. Read the Da Vinci code or something if you’re bored, hell, you’ll still be better informed than right now. There will also be blood pressure benefits and you might be able to empathise with people better.
Just a thought
Fran Barlow
Well put Fran.
The word mandate is one of the most abused words used by politicians of either stripe. Cherry picking to back or refute the same policy by both government and opposition. The only way to say a party has a mandate is if that party has one and only one policy and wins. No chance of that ever happening. Elections produce multiple policies with some being detailed and others vague in detail but heavy on slogans.
“You are forgetting that she almost lost the election with the stupid promise not to have a price on carbon. Before then she was a shoe in. I have had a gutful of the lieberals whining about frigging tax, there are only 3 letters need to be quoted G S T.”
Marilyn, it almost pains me to say this, but I couldn’t agree more.
As for Tony Abbott – how short your memories are!! It was only 10 months ago he himself said not to “believe everything I say”.
Lefties – do yourselves a favour and don’t dismiss Gillard’s lies. She lied. She broke an election promise. End of story.
Righties – do the rest of the world a favour and remember your lot do it too.
Wouldn’t it be nice to get an estoppel on the basis of common-sense rather than previously legally accepted positions and so prevent Fran Bailey boring us all to the back teeth into radical leftist ideological submission?
What Fran’s “inter alia” actually means is that the Greens are ideologically closer to Josef Stalin than the ALP to Karl Marx………… although …I know… I know…. some say: “same diff’ that is simply unfair…. as the Greens really are, to use a yet another mind-numbing franism: ‘Stalinistas’ whilst there’s a little more than a ‘cigarette paper’ ‘twixt the ALP and Karl…..
Well 2 days later. Kudos where it’s due Richard. A particularly fine piece of clickbait has done its job.
JamesK
Thanks for your reply and further info, I’ll check them out. But don’t worry about my sensitivity, I was just just having a chuckle to myself.
One more question if I may, then I’ll leave you be. Can you tell me which television stations, newspapers and radio stations you consider ‘mainstream’?
Thanks.
@Sof: You are an odd fellow. All Fairfax, all News Ltd. including Sky, all fta-tv, ABC Radio and internet sites:Drum and Unleashed.
I’ve just noticed the post true its writer’s poisonous moniker and scat-worship wherein sins of omission are no sin at all…….
Orwell famously prologued his novel Animal Farm:
“The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. … Things are kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervenes but because of a general tacit agreement that ‘it wouldn’t do’ to mention that particular fact.”.
Bias of omission is both conscious and, perhaps more easily than other type of bias, unconscious. It is, as a result one of the more effective means of bias.
I would have suggested that hegeeythemaniac read up on journalistic bias….. but it seems clear that thoughtful consideration coupled with even a mild effort is not within his obviously limited capability.
A return to potty training may well be the best counsel for hegemoniac.
JamesK
I’m new to this all, that might be the oddness.
So all Fairfax, all News Ltd. including Sky, all fta-tv, ABC Radio and internet sites:Drum and Unleashed is leftist. What an odd country, I look forward to finding out more about it.
Thanks.
What a disappointing load of deliberately provocative nonsense, Richard.
Initiating a commentary war with an “article” (opinion or otherwise) so inflammatory as to qualify as trolling, is hardly journalism, or blogging for that matter.
Do you really believe the tripe you have written? From what I have gleaned from this thread it appears you have been around politics far too long to hold such a simplistic, naive and obtuse opinion.
@JamesK
OBVIOUSLY you’re not going to take timeout from your busy sheep-like following of dishonest characters.
Seriously man, take a Cenovis chill pill. That way you might not be so prone to wrongly thinking that you’re more intelligent than the riff raff (read up on journalistic bias, my @#$@#$).
I mean, just look at what you’re saying
Richard Farmer, for example, is a biased lefty but he does report international news that is not reported in our MSM.
You just like the fact that he says highly contentious crap like this “Ms Gillard now stands exposed as one of the great political liars of all times.”. So, he reports on non-mainstream news when it SUITS YOU.
Could you be more phoney.
Everyone that has posted a comment thus far is a sheep follower . You all seem to think we are all part of some democracy thats supposed to be fair , just and honest . That would be ideal , only one problem . It’s not a democracy folks . It’s just another capatilist dictatorship not unlike our mother and father ( USA & England ) Do you think if 300,000 of us started taking to the streets and the establishment thought they were at risk they would’nt start shooting us . Wake up people , we have to be controlled for it to work and to save us from ourselves . And another thing , how many businessmen don’t lie ? Capitalism is just the wealthy controlling us through whatever means they have at their disposal . And don’t call me an conspiraciy monger . Conspiracy is just a term that the establishment use to discredit the truth . Call it what it is people and we will be so much closer to a real democracy .
Hmm…. “contentious crap”……..
I suspect hegymaniac’s scat fixation extends to smokin’ a tad too much of it…
Sad Day wtf…. when is there ever a happy day in the fog of democracy?
All politicans are liars, it all starts in their own party preselection rants.
Gillard/swan have done such an abysmal job of selling the carbon tax added with an appallingly pathetic job at facing facts about the backflipp. ALL politics aside I find myself having nothing but admiration at how Howard/Costello sold us backflip after backflipp with out allowing the opposition to harness and control the debate. Gillard has harnessed and hogtied herself all thanks to ONE lowerhouse Green MP and given Abbott the reins and Bishop the Whip.
What Gillards has proven to be is a not-very-good liar; this is her only political crime.
Ms Gillard now stands exposed as one of the great political liars of all times. She is not a woman to be trusted.
utter bollocks. If she can get a carbon tax and in the process, sell it to the public then I’ll trust her with the most precious gift in a democracy. My vote.
You think people really give two shits about whether a politician lied to get into office and then ended discrimination or gave more civil rights? Of course not, so why should this be any different?
And all those people carrying on about Howard being a “man of conviction”, get over yourselves. He was bringing in a stupid tax for chrissakes, the man had no real values or ideals that left people in a better place. Go worship at your altar to glorified accountants and leave the serious talk to others.
(got my eyes on you, JamesK
)
For crying out loud Richard. If you make a mistake (a ridiculous but qualified statement that there would be no carbon tax) and you realise you have been an idiot, do you;
- make further mistakes by keeping to the content of the original error, or
- grow a brain, and some courage, and face up to the fact that you screwed up.
By your standards, nobody would ever admit to an error and fix the original problem.
Scoring Julia as one of the great liars of all time! Blimey, she wouldn’t make the top 10, and you know that. How many non-core promises did John Howard go back on?
And JamesK, or should we just call you Troll#1, invoking the Sydney Institute as some arbiter of neutral reportage is comical. News Ltd as a cabal of leftist reporting!!!!! Greens really stalinistas! Your head could not possibly be that far up your date.
If you have something intelligent to say please enlighten us, but so far all you have managed is to remove any doubt from those who were wondering if you were a fool.
Fair dinkum, the mindless right will happily destroy this country, and the planet if they can. Damn them all.