NBN: Misleading parliament should be a crime

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opinion The Federal Government should follow Queensland and enact a law which makes it illegal for politicians to knowingly mislead Parliament with false information. This would immediately have a dramatic and positive impact on the quality of the debate around the National Broadband Network.

Over the past several years, a number of senior, predominantly Coalition politicians, have repeatedly made a number of grossly inaccurate statements about the project, as part of attempts to discredit Labor’s broadband vision and promote their own.

Some of the worst recent examples include a Liberal MP inaccurately claiming that Telstra would launch a 12Mbps wireless broadband service which would “surpass” the National Broadband Network’s 100Mbps fibre to the home service; the leader of the Nationals falsely claiming that the NBN was not being rolled out in an area in his electorate and an inaccurate claim by Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey that 4G mobile broadband services had the potential to be “far superior” to the NBN.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has become particularly renowned for his inaccurate claims about the NBN; falsely stating on a number of occasions that the Government’s funding of the project should be listed as an expense rather than a capital investment in the Federal Budget, claiming inaccurately that retail customers will pay up to three times more than current rates to connect to the NBN, and misconstruing the NBN project as a large expense to Australian taxpayers, when in fact it is projected to make a modest financial return on the Government’s investment in it.

A number of media outlets have over this period highlighted the inaccurate nature of these statements, providing evidence to show that they are factually inaccurate and should not be taken seriously. However, a number of other media outlets have continued to report the statements as fact, and in some cases, the politicians concerned have continued to repeat the statements, despite their inaccuracy.

This has placed journalists such as myself in a difficult position over the long term. For instance, if inaccurate claims continue to be made, when do you stop reporting that a leading political figure is ‘misleading’ Australia on a certain issue, has made a ‘factually inaccurate’ statement, or is simply ‘mistaken’, and start reporting instead that that politician is deliberately ‘lying’ on an issue in public, for political gain?

If a politician continues to make inaccurate statements about a major project such as the NBN, and some elements of the media continues to report them, is the right approach to continue to correct those statements with new articles, or merely to acknowledge that they have already been proven wrong, and ignore them?

In an article published on the ABC’s The Drum site last week, the presenter of the Insiders TV show, Barry Cassidy, makes it clear that the issue is a widespread one which exists beyond the NBN. He points out that Abbott has consistently been inaccurately referring to asylum seekers as “illegal arrivals”, despite these individuals having every right in Australian and international law to seek asylum from Australia. Recently, Cassidy points out, ABC radio presenter Jon Faine corrected Abbott on this matter on air. Abbott didn’t dispute the point, but within 24 hours was again incorrectly using the term “illegals” to refer to asylum seekers. “Nobody in the media pulled him up. He knew they wouldn’t. They rarely do,” wrote Cassidy.

What this example, and the example of the inaccuracies which the Coalition has made with respect to the NBN demonstrates, is that the media’s role as a check and balance on Australian politicians is broadly not succeeding when it comes to forcing those politicians to stay within reasonable parameters of debate and not simply mislead the Australian public on key issues of national concern. Either the ‘Fourth Estate’ is not powerful enough to enforce accuracy on politicians, or it is simply not trying hard enough.

So what’s the answer? In Queensland, the answer recently became to make it a criminal offence to knowingly mislead (lie to) the state’s parliament. In April, the state resurrected laws repealed under the previous Beattie Labor administration which will see anyone, including politicians, who lie to parliament could face years in gaol.

Several weeks ago, I asked Communications Minister Stephen Conroy whether, given the Coalition’s misrepresentations about the NBN, he would personally be in favour of importing this kind of law into Federal Parliament, or whether there were other measures which could be taken to improve the quality of the national debate about the NBN.

This is an issue on which Conroy has a keen interest. Earlier in that exact same press briefing, the Minister had gone on a lengthy diatribe about how sections of the media — especially the Financial Review newspaper — were constantly repeating misconceptions about the project perpetuated by the Coalition. Conroy went so far as to recommend that those interested in accuracy read broadband forum Whirlpool instead.

In response to my question, Conroy pointed out that a minister who misled parliament “usually has to resign”, and that Labor had a ministerial code of conduct with respect to such affairs. “If I lie or mislead parliament, then I have to resign,” he said. “That’s a pretty severe sanction.”

Conroy said that the shadow front bench — the leading members of the Opposition — “clearly doesn’t bother taking that serious”, adding that if Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Abbott, “decided to start actually telling the truth”, a number of the misconceptions in the AFR and other newspapers which he had highlighted earlier in his presentation would not be published.

However, Conroy stopped short of actually supporting the introduction of laws which would stop politicians misleading Federal Parliament, and it’s not hard to see why. After all, the Coalition is hardly the only political party to host politicians who make misleading statements, and Conroy has some form in this regard himself.

In February this year, for example, Conroy appeared to consciously tell a factual inaccuracy with respect to the current implementation status of Labor’s controversial Internet filtering project, stating that Telstra and Optus had implemented the mandatory filtering system, when they have only implemented a drastically reduced voluntary version.

In a press conference with Prime Minister Julia Gillard televised live nationally, Conroy was asked whether he was still philosophically committed to the Internet filter project, and whether it would be implemented during the current term of government, or the next. The full transcript is available online here. “Well, two companies, in fact three companies have already introduced it,” he said. “It may come as a great surprise to you that the internet hasn’t slowed down or collapsed. Telstra and Optus and a small – apologies to the third company – have introduced the filter.” However, as Conroy was aware, no Australian Internet service provider has implemented the Internet filtering system which remains the current policy of the Federal Government.

Now, I think it’s important to note that introducing a law making it a criminal offence to mislead Federal Parliament wouldn’t stop politicians from making inaccurate statements. Most political statements, after all, are made in speeches or press releases broadcast outside Parliament — not inside the walls of Parliament itself.

However, if we examine the NBN debate, it’s clear that there are some pretty major falsehoods which would have fallen under the purview of such a law. For example, in May this year, Abbott made a number of major misrepresentations about the NBN in his budget reply speech, broadcast from the floor of the House of Representatives. At least one of these misrepresentations — his claim that it would cost up to three times more to connect to the NBN — can be easily and quickly shown to be factually wrong. And in fact, Conroy pointed this out at the time, stating: “Tony Abbott should check his facts before delivering a national address in the Australian Parliament.” Indeed, he should.

When you examine the history of debate in Australia around the NBN, it’s not hard to find numerous other examples. Some articles quoting Coalition views on the NBN — such as this one discussing Joe Hockey’s opinion about the NBN’s funding — used speeches in Parliament as their base source. Others cite press releases — but when you dig into the parliamentary Hansard record around the dates in question, it becomes apparent that the press releases are based on, or discuss the same material as, parliamentary speeches around that time.

Other arenas of Parliament also become relevant. What about the regular Senate Estimates hearings, for example? Or the joint parliamentary committee specifically examining the NBN? Parliamentary Privilege — the concept that politicians should be legally free to say what they want in Parliament — applies to these venues, so it seems natural that any law criminalising misleading Parliament would apply here as well. And it is standard practice for politicians to engage in slanging matches on controversial topics such as the NBN in these hearings.

It was in a parliamentary committee hearing in April, for example, that Turnbull took NBN Co chief executive Mike Quigley to task for NBN Co’s move to build and launch its own satellites to provide broadband to rural and regional Australia. Turnbull claimed at the time that this sort of service could be more easily provided by existing private sector satellites and also that NBN Co had not followed the correct procedure during its launch plans. However, there appears to be little evidence that Turnbull’s claims were correct.

Unfortunately, I think it is extremely unlikely in the current political climate, that the Federal Government would in the foreseeable future follow Queensland and enact laws making it a crime to mislead parliament. This move in Queensland was the result of a fairly unusual set of circumstances surrounding the decimation of Labor in the recent State Election; and Queensland is an unusual state politically anyway. However, it’s hard to argue with the fact that the introduction of similar laws in Canberra would have a stark and immediate impact on the quality of important debates such as the one surrounding the National Broadband Network.

As Queensland’s LNP Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said in April: “The … community expects its parliamentarians to act responsibly and with the highest integrity. Knowingly giving false evidence before the Parliament or one of its committees is conduct cutting to the heart of parliamentary privilege and is deserving of criminal sanction.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

49 COMMENTS

  1. I like the idea of people actually being accountable for their words. Public servants should not be excluded from societies expectation that the truth be told. I’m not necessarily a fan of the NBN, but I shouldn’t have to mislead people to get my argument across.

    • This should be a given. No person in Parliament ought to tell anything but the truth, just as in a Court. Good grief, we should take this for granted!!

  2. Problem is Renai, many of the comments made (but not all) that we disagree with are merely misleading, rather than wrong.

    The claim that users could pay up to 3 times as much for the NBN for example. Its true, users COULD pay up to 3x their current costs. That doesnt mean they will. I use TPG, and right now, they arent offering plans for the NBN. So, when it gets rolled out sometime in the next 12 months, I need to look about for a new provider.

    If I go for similar bandwidths at the top speed, there are numerous plans that are 3x or more than what I currently pay. Will I pay that? Not likely. But I could.

    When you look at the ‘expense to the taxpayer’ line, again, technically true. The Government, as representative of the taxpayers, will be locked into $30b (give or take) of debt to build the network. Thats a cost, one way or another, that they are liable for. If the NBN, for whatever reason, generates zero income, that still has to be paid back. Again, techically correct claim, just not realistic.

    And almost every FUD statement made is the same. Isolated, by themselves, the comments arent lies – they are extreme, and worst case in just about every situation, but not lies.

    Some are, but not as many as people think, and thats where they would get away with it. Sensationalising a situation is what politicians do best, and in this case its being taken to extremes in the name of politics.

    Its the combination of FUD thats doing the damage though. When you bring all the comments together, for the uninitiated, it presents a very poor picture, which isnt being addressed by NBNCo or the Government to any large degree. Whether thats a delibrate tactic or not, only time will tell. I like to think they arent worrying about it for now, but saving up for a concerted response in the lead up to next years election. Why waste ammo now when every bit of FUD can be used in October 2013 to rebutt the arguments?

    The Lib’s are doing the same by not releasing any significant plans, so maybe Labor is playing the same game…

    • Definately agree GongGav.

      While I personally would campaign for such a law Renai, fact is, most of the “misleading” statements about the NBN have been just that- misleading. Not lies.There have been a few that stretched to the breaking point of lies, but most were simply completely unrealistic or utterly out of context misrepresentations.

      My issue here is, this seems to be the worst I’ve seen in Australian politics recently. It appears to me as though the Coalition have decided to ignore most ethical guidelines of politiking (which are only vaguely adhered to anyway) and go for broke assuming the media won’t correct them. And by and large, the mainstream media don’t.

      I don’t think it’s possible to legislate that the media MUST to the truth no matter what (although that is supposed to be their job), just the same that it’s not possible to do the same for politicians. But there SHOULD be some serious look into investigation of misleading statements (REGARDLESS of if they’re out of context/unrealistic or not) and some HEAVY penalties (paying a charity and a public speech in parliament retraction?) of those that are found to be guilty.

      I think the emphasis needs to be put on making it SO difficult for politicians to get of scot free, that they would be compelled to NOT do so…..

      • Easy solution – remove parlimentary priviledge, or at the very least soften it back so they cant hide behind it. Thats where they get away with it.

      • When you’re a political party with two of the largest mainstream media outlets on-side – to a conservative liberal persuasion – its always going to be difficult to counteract anything in the media.

        I agree with the penalties for MPs deliberately skirting or crossing the line between fact and fiction, however I think the problems to some degree come from a severe lack of talent within both sides of politics. Most of these MPs that are current ‘front benchers’ are in the spotlight spouting pointless dribble. Even the talented ones have dropped their standards to get in on the act. There seems to be very few of them willing to actually NOT make a factually incorrect or misleading statement. Cultural issues possibly within the political scene ?

    • “Problem is Renai, many of the comments made (but not all) that we disagree with are merely misleading, rather than wrong.”

      True, many of the comments are merely misleading. But many of them are not. Some examples:

      -4G mobile broadband does not, contract to Joe Hockey’s claims, have the potential to have a superior capacity to fibre
      -Telstra is not, contrary to Don Randall’s claims, launching a 12Mbps wireless network to rival the NBN
      -The Government’s NBN funding, contrary to claims by Hockey and Abbott, should not, according to accounting standards, be included as an expense item in the Federal Budget
      -NBN retail costs are not, contrary to Abbott’s claims, up to three times more expensive than current broadband pricing, and I have not seen any comprehensive economic analysis to suggest that they will be (on the other hand, NBN Co has plenty of analysis showing prices will be the same or cheaper)

      And so on.

      As a journalist, I have been attempting to professionally decode fact from fiction for the better part of a decade now. The conclusion I have come to with regards to this process is that fact is based on evidence, and fiction based on speculation or weaker evidence.

      I believe that in politics, any information presented without supporting evidence or with evidence which goes against the mainstream independent expert analysis in a certain industry should be classified as “speculation”, and any information presented with a strong body of largely uncontested evidence as “fact”.

      I believe we have a label for this process — I think I have heard it referred to as “the scientific method”.

      The notion that we cannot differentiate fact from speculation, I believe, goes against the evidence that humans have consistently needed to do this successfully in order to progress as a species.

      • Fair enough, I’m just looking at it from a pure evidence or no evidence perspective, so rather than toss the minimal evidence in as fiction, I’m listing it as proven. I agree that there are comments and statements made that are pure fiction, like the 4G claims, and 12 Mbps network of Telstras, but again, plenty of other stuff is merely deceptive.

        Again, the 3x plans. Go over to Bigpond, look at their NBN plans, and the default page has a $150/month plan. Dig a little, and there’s a $250/month plan. Thats not saying those plans dont come with extras, like a T-box and/or Foxtel, but they ARE NBN plans, and ARE 3x (or more) more than the same bandwidth as I get with TPG for $50/month.

        Again, not likely I’ll go for that plan, but the claim that people could be paying 3x more than current can be backed up. Its just highly deceptive. Highly deceptive of the reality, but still a plan that has a minor kernel of truth. And for what you’re asking, thats enough to get away with it.

        I’m coming at this from 10 years of systems analysis for the Govt, and the reports I had to make over that time included plenty that on the surface looked extremely poor, yet was easily explained away. Every month/quarter/year had an exceptions report to cover those abnormals, with the difference here being there’s nobody stepping up to justify the 1%ers.

      • @Renai

        -4G mobile broadband does not, contract to Joe Hockey’s claims, have the potential to have a superior capacity to fibre

        Ah yes, but to SOME it does IF they don’t do any heavy downloading….

        -Telstra is not, contrary to Don Randall’s claims, launching a 12Mbps wireless network to rival the NBN

        No, they’re a launching a BETTER than 12Mbps wireless AND it WILL be competing with LOW-END NBN possibilities….

        -The Government’s NBN funding, contrary to claims by Hockey and Abbott, should not, according to accounting standards, be included as an expense item in the Federal Budget

        I’ll give you that one ;-D

        -NBN retail costs are not, contrary to Abbott’s claims, up to three times more expensive than current broadband pricing, and I have not seen any comprehensive economic analysis to suggest that they will be (on the other hand, NBN Co has plenty of analysis showing prices will be the same or cheaper)

        But, as GongGav has said twice, they COULD be IF people chose the highest plans, 3 times as expensive. That one is the closest to an outright lie. But by a VERY big stretch could be considered simply misleading.

        This is my point- through rose tinted Coalition glasses, all those are simply out of context, not lies. And THAT is where the problem lies.

        I believe we have a label for this process — I think I have heard it referred to as “the scientific method”.

        I agree. I’ve lived, taught and BEEN taught the scientific method for years, both at school AND professionally. However, the scientific method only applies to observable and quantifiable facts- If you can observe it and repeat it, it is fact. This is NOT the case with a debate over a (largely) non-existent network. Hence our problems. Politicians speculate based on available evidence. They also speculate based on what constituents want to hear. NEITHER is relevant to scientific method. Nor is most of politics unfortunately :D

        • “Ah yes, but to SOME it does IF they don’t do any heavy downloading….”

          “No, they’re a launching a BETTER than 12Mbps wireless AND it WILL be competing with LOW-END NBN possibilities….”

          Hi seven_tech,

          FYI in accordance with Delimiter’s comments policy I am banning you for a week from Delimiter. I commend the following paragraphs from that policy to you:

          http://delimiter.com.au/comments-policy/

          “Comments which display a lack of rationality or reasonableness. For example, a number of commenters on Delimiter over the past year have engaged in the debate, but consistently avoided acknowledging substantive issues raised by other commenters in relation to their argument. Instead, they have deliberately diverted the discussion down another path, annoying many other commenters.

          Comments which inject demonstratably false information into the debate (for example: “Fibre broadband only offers speeds up to 50Mbps”).”

          Your comment here does not directly address the points I made, and avoids the substantive issues it raises. Furthermore, it does so in an impolite way by using capital letters. Your other comments today have been consistent with this theme.

          You will be able to comment again in a week.

          Cheers,

          Renai

          • I think you’ve been a bit harsh there Renai. I don’t read any impoliteness in seven_tech’s comment, just pointing out that politicians’ statements can be weazled out of by adding extra clarificiation. And it does directly address your substantive comment insofar as it’s very difficult to pin pollies down as having said something which is outright false from all perspectives.

            The caps usage probably should have be italics, as I read it as emphasis not shouting.

            I dunno what his other posts have been like though, so obviously you’re free to do whatever you think best.

          • Renai,

            I agree with Sanchez, seven_tech has a level head. I am surprised he is challenging you on these points though because he is quite supportive generally. I suppose he is trying to show you how they can get away with points like the ones you listed. We have to deal with this all the time in the FUD thread on WP. I did not think the ban was called for in this instance.

          • Renai,

            Getting upset over the use of capitals? I am quite surprised. There are far more important things in the world to be worried about…

          • I too interpreted his use of capitals as an emphasis but on a side note, is it worth banning him for a week considering how much positive posting he normally does within the week? Just a thought.

          • A question I ask myself when deciding to ban someone for a week is: “Is there any evidence I could present which could make that person question their own beliefs?” With respect to @seven_tech’s NBN posts recently, that answer has been “no”. And that alone is sufficient for a week’s ban. I do not want Delimiter to become a haven for pro- or anti- dogma of any kind. This is an evidence-based forum.

          • The interesting thing is he was banned for putting foward examples of the arguments the anti NBN lobby use ti argue against your points, not his own.

        • “That one is the closest to an outright lie. But by a VERY big stretch could be considered simply misleading.”

          To mislead IS to lie.

          Look up the wiki page on ‘lie’.

          • The definition I’m working from (Macquarie dictionary) has “a false statement made with intent to deceive” as its key point, which 7T and I am saying is not the case – plenty (again, not all) of the statements arent actully FALSE, just misleading.

            Having said that, a second definition has “something intended or serving to convey a false impression”, and I’ll readily admit the various statements meet that criteria.

            My view is that while I certainly disagree with how the Liberals are misleading, while ANY part of their statements can be shown to potentially be true, I have to recognise that. I can show plans that cost more than 3 times what I pay now, so where is that claim a lie? Its not going to be the norm, far from it, but its not wrong.

            Renai is right on that, every indicator is that it will be considerably cheaper, but that doesnt mean some ISP’s arent price gouging, or value adding so the monthly cost is considerably higher, or that someone isnt quoted $150k for the NBN…

            I think its harsh to ban 7T for a week, he’s just trying to point out that while misleading, they arent necessarily lies. To take 1 line and ban him for a week is unfair when ultimately its a matter of opinion.

            You could list 20 statements you think are lies they have made, and only 2 or 3 would be flat out wrong. The rest would simply be highly selective, and cover a very narrow set of circumstances. Misleading? Definitely, and by one definition that could be enough to be considered a lie. But by other definitions it isnt enough.

            Which definition do you use?

      • “-NBN retail costs are not, contrary to Abbott’s claims, up to three times more expensive than current broadband pricing, and I have not seen any comprehensive economic analysis to suggest that they will be (on the other hand, NBN Co has plenty of analysis showing prices will be the same or cheaper)”

        This particular point is actually evidence of a gaffe by Abbott. It is a lie, but in this instance I believe made out of actual stupidity rather than being malicious.
        The important evidence of this is in the factors used. “Three times” is precisely the difference in cost between Labours NBN, and the supposed cost of the as-yet-unspecified Coalition network. I highly suspect that this line was derived from the fact that the coalition claims their network will cost 3 times less.

        The only conclusion is Tony’s budget reply speech was not fact-checked by Malcolm Turnbull. They took the “three times cost difference” and applied it to end users instead of to the projected build cost as a whole.

        Just dumb and VERY worrying that this kind of mistake can end up in such an important a speech as the budget reply..

      • @ Renai – I believe we have a label for this process — I think I have heard it referred to as “the scientific method”.

        You do understand that you are tasking the creationist party with using scientific methodology?

      • He definitely mislead parliament with that electricity bill stunt !! But wasn’t challenged.

  3. “If I lie or mislead parliament, then I have to resign,” he said. “That’s a pretty severe sanction.”

    If the coalition followed such a policy half of their ministers would have to resign.

  4. If a company made misleading claims it would be in trouble so why shouldn’t our politician be held to the same standards as public companies?

    Respect for democracy has to be earned.

    • “If a company made misleading claims it would be in trouble so why shouldn’t our politician be held to the same standards as public companies?”

      +100

    • I agree Paul.

      NBNCo is being accused of hiding facts and not being transparent, due to confidentiality.

      Yet politicians can blatantly lie?

  5. Not sure what this law will do. If the law states that it is illegal to lie or mislead parliament how does this in anyway prevent them from doing that in their media interviews?

    • It provides less of a “source” for the media to base their false claims on. They are more likely to quote a parliamentary speech as “fact” than some random media interview.

      Or I could be totally wrong on this…

  6. The real problem with the idea is that we would first have to define what a lie is. Should all the misleading statements made by a politician be considered lies? How do we determine if a statement was deliberate or inadvertent or somewhere in between? It is inevitable that in considering any action, the parliament would work on party lines without any consideration of procedural fairness or the truth. I would suggest that the parliament would never refer a case for prosecution even if such a law existed.

    It seems to me there has been a reduction in the expectations of highly ethical behavior by our politicians and also the fourth estate. They are starting to be looked on by the community as having the same veracity as the proverbial used car salesman. How much of this is being driven by the “party machines” behind the elected representatives.

    The ultimate sanction of politicians is at the ballot box. If the fourth estate had any intestinal fortitude it would be publicly reminding the people of the misleading statements made by all current politicians and parties in the lead in to the election. As elections are determined by swinging voters in marginal seats we could see some interesting results despite opinion poll predictions. Our politicians and their party machines might just decide that being ethical and truthful in their dealings is actually valuable.

    • “Should all the misleading statements made by a politician be considered lies?”

      Yes

      “How do we determine if a statement was deliberate or inadvertent or somewhere in between?”

      You don’t. A false comment is wrong, regardless of whether it was deliberate or inadvertent. This would just make the politicians pay more attention before opening their mouths.

      • @Tom
        Could you give us your definition of a lie please. Mine is ‘a deliberate false statement by a person with the objective to cause harm or receive a personal advantage.’

        “A false comment is wrong, regardless of whether it was deliberate or inadvertent. This would just make the politicians pay more attention before opening their mouths.”

        A false comment is obviously going to be wrong. What about the situation where a person makes a statement based on information from a reliable and credible source and it turns out that the statement relied on is incorrect. Do you consider that the person is lying?

        I have seen Renai correct statements on this site when he has new information that shows what he has said is incorrect. Does this mean that Renai is a liar?

        Do you believe that politicians should be required to maintain a level of accuracy significantly higher than the general population? Should they be held accountable for inaccuracy in advice received from highly reputable sources?

        • “What about the situation where a person makes a statement based on information from a reliable and credible source and it turns out that the statement relied on is incorrect. Do you consider that the person is lying?”

          Probably not, if they correct their statement after discovering the information was incorrect. In that case, you would go after the source of the incorrect information.

        • The problem isn’t really the first instance of a lie. It is repeating it once you have been given direct evidence that what you are saying is wrong.

          Lieing isn’t really the true problem (because you can lie by accident!). It’s saying the same lie over and over again that is.

  7. Maybe you should license a PolitiFact franchise for Australia, Renai. I imagine a few ‘pants on fire’ ratings could then be stuck onto any garbage coming out of a politician.

  8. Maybe all Political releases should have a public Bullsh!t meter vote system on them. Let the public decide by marking it as bullshit or not.
    I know this can be rigged, but the funny thing on this solution is you must allow the public to watch live how much resource each political party is going to throw at it and they will. It’ll also give us a scope on how important something is to a particular Party. If we have to pay to suffer these idiots, we may as well get entertained by their foolishness and not annoyed by it all the time.
    Whilst this all may be in jest, the state of our Nation’s Politicians is not. There is a way to get rid of all of them at the ballot. Yes, you can be charged if your caught telling people how to do it, so guess what, I am not.

  9. Think of the iPad 4G thing (see http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/1060611/fromItemId/2332 ). Its quite clear that the iPad 2 can talk 4G, so its not a “lie” to say that it can. To market the thing with 4G support in Aus was misleading however, and Apple were duly penalised.

    There is a group of professionals now that are supposed to be doing this sort of checking for statements from politicians. We often refer to them as “journalists”, however their function has largely descended to that of “repeater station”.

    The problem is not that politicians are bullshitters. That is now and always will be the case. The problem as I see it is that there is no independent body that will actually take them to task in a fair and consistent manner regardless of the side of politics they come from.

    As such, I think the penalty, if any, should be applied to the media outlets. Maybe a 3 strike rule, where publishing articles containing statements that are obviously misleading without pointing out clearly why they are misleading gets you a strike. 3 strikes and you, as a company, are banned from publishing anything at all for say 3 months.

    Well I don’t really think that would work, but would be interesting to see the outrage from editors if they were required by law to engage in actual journalism.

    • We are supposed to have something that operates like the” three strikes rule” you propose.

      The idea is that people are supposed to gravitate towards the highest quality product. In news this would rationally be described as the most accurate news.

      Sadly, people are not rational, and it turns out the so-called checks and balances on media outlets (ie the market) actually prefer to hear lies and slander (“Juliar”, “Big New Tax”, “White Elephant”, “illegal imigrants”) more than they do the truth (“Minority Government”, “Tax and Rebate”, “20year Investment”, “Legal Asylum Seekers”).

      All of my examples are single-party focused, but I have zero doubt that were the roles reversed (TA as PM etc) we would see the roles 100% reversed.

  10. “The … community expects its parliamentarians to act responsibly and with the highest integrity.”

    A classic case of a politician saying no more than what he wants us to believe, while big-noting himself. News flash Jarrod, a large part of the community expects its parliamentarians to act childishly, and with very little integrity, based on countless examples especially from the recent past. Such as today, when we saw Tony Abbott thrown out of the House for defying the Acting Speaker.

  11. Its bloody annoying, I wish the government would clean up their behaviour. Abbot and Malcom’s behaviour bring Parliament into disrepute. The Parliament itself should start sanctioning individual MP’s who present misleading information, be it in the press or otherwise. They may be protected by parliamentary privilege during sitting time but when they walk out those doors and present misleading information to the public they should be held accountable.

  12. I agree some sort of law to make the bastards be more honest would be nice and well also for the a fine/gaol time to be implemented that is not a slap on the wrist.

    Also to have it apply to Journalists as well to make some of them less lazy e.g. publishing stories before checking the facts.

    Anything that can and will mislead the public about something that is in a national debate or politics should have RULES around it to prevent blatant lieing for political or financial gain.

    maybe an extension of this: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s307b.html

  13. Talk of sanctioning pollies for lying in Parliament is dangerous. Does it not occur to anyone how this could be abused by a ruthless government for their own purposes?

    Lying, FUD and misconceptions all lie in a spectrum of human activity from black to white. Very little of it will ever be absolutely black to absolutely everybody.

    The problem is not with politicians, it lies with those who have the function of reconciling what politicians say with reality. Well Renai, you are one of those people, and generally as far as I can see you do a fair job. Also as far as I can see you are one of a minority within your profession.

    If the major news outlets in this country have little or no allegience to the truth, just what are the politicians supposed to do about it?

  14. The issue is how do you define a lie?

    A couple of outright lies have come from the Coalition with regards to the NBN, but far more commonly they have just stretched the truth by extrapolating, proposing hypotheticals, choosing what facts to include and not include, etc.

    This is probably bad form. I dislike spin, but at the same time you could not outlaw spin without considerably stifling political debate and democracy.

  15. Politicians continually stretch the rules and use “terminological inexactitudes” to mislead people,and I expect them to continue to do this for as long as they can get away with it. Journalists need to be more diligent in their duty and point out these errors and force the politicians to be held responsible for these misleading statements.

    • What makes it worse IMO, Terry is, we now have an election in the wings!

      So such intentional inaccuracies will be running rife, as the greed to rule from both sides, overtakes the facts :(

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