Dear Sir,
It is said, “if you cannot lie convincingly then you can not become a politician”. Academically, a lie is only a lie when it is proved to be a falsehood. The complaint that Labor lied, before the election, over the Medicare issue still hasn’t been proved such that it was a lie. Before an election, no one could know a Prime Minister’s true post election intentions. Shakespeare’s quotation suggests that people who protest denial too strongly are hiding a truth. Our Prime Minister fitted that description to many people, before the election.
There have been many similar situations in the past where the statement before an election turns out to be a downright lie after the election. Then there is the question of misleading the voting public (lying), which the Australian Electoral Commission was guilty of as it resolutely and definitively stated that six boxes above the line had to be numbered serially one to six, otherwise, the vote would be informal. Several reputable sources, and the media dispelled this claim consistently, such that if only one box was numbered, the vote would still be formal.
At the Polling Booth the clerk continued the spiel that six boxes must be numbered above the line on the Senate paper. In normal life, for we poor mortals, false claims (lying), in business and advertising, can be tested in a court of law. Is it any wonder that we lose faith in politics and the law?
With kind regards,
Bill Barwood