Being Honest With The Electorate

Honesty has been a sore point in politics of late. Julia Gillard was caught out lying about what Liberal Party leader Mr Abbott had said in a magazine interview. NSW Premier and former planning minister Kenneally and former minister Sartor are being questioned by the ICAC in relation to the matter of the death of businessman McGurk and allegations of corruption. The Times has recently published how the IPCC chief was aware that elements of the report referred to in Copenhagen were wrong and not corrected until after the conference .. and after Rudd had paid him one million dollars. It is more disturbing when it is realized that Rudd had no known objective in mind when giving the million dollars away. But finally, Rudd in interview with Laurie Oakes who rarely questions what Rudd says, repeatedly said in interview that former Prime Minister Mr Howard agreed with Rudd on the issue of climate change, which he doesn't. Rudd also claimed in the Oakes interview he was a conservative in that area and that he was thinking of 'working families.'
Gillard may claim she didn't know what she was talking about, and hadn't read the article when she lied about Mr Abbott. Mr Abbott had been asked what advice he would give his three daughters on sex before marriage, he told the (Women’s) Weekly: ‘’I would say to my daughters, if they were to ask me this question … it is the greatest gift you can give someone, the ultimate gift of giving and don’t give it to someone lightly.’’ To which Gillard claims TONY Abbott’s advice to young women about not giving away their virginity lightly would confirm ‘’the worst fears of Australian women’’ followed by "Australian women don’t want to be told what to do by Tony Abbott. Australian women want to make their own choices, and they don’t want to be lectured to by Mr Abbott.’’ As Andrew Bolt writes "You see immediately Gillard’s dishonesty. Abbott was not “lecturing” Australian women generally. He was talking only to his own daughters, which is actually his responsibility. Nor was he telling anyone “what to do”. He was suggesting to his daughters, on being asked, what they might consider when making their own decisions." Gillard profits by the deception. She has been told that polling suggests she should attack Mr Abbott on the matter of his Catholic faith. The media seem to accept it.
The ICAC inquiry into Keneally and Sartor is at the beginning. Questions are being asked. Of extreme concern is the habit of ALP Government in NSW to not be transparent, giving them the appearance of corruption even in the distant likelihood that they are actually clean. We know that McGurk was murdered and we know he claimed that senior ALP politicians may desire to silence him. This gets uglier when the case of Hamidur Rahman is looked at. Hamidur was a year eight schoolboy who died when in the care of Hurlstone Agricultural High School in 2002. He had a peanut allergy and had been instructed by a teacher to lick peanut butter from a spoon in front of his peers. The coroner ruled it an accident but assigned some blame to the parents for not informing the school of the allergy. It gets ugly when it is realized that the school had been told of the allergy a year in advance and had neglected to tell the supervising teacher, and then covered up the slip post mortem. Is the NSW Government corrupt, or merely incompetent?
Then we have Rudd mixed up with the IPCC. Rudd is still wishing to inflict a substantial tax on everything, more sweeping than the GST but with no saving grace. A tax which is based on a premise that is now publicly acknowledged as being wrong, that the world is heating from Carbon Dioxide. What Mr Howard has said on the matter is that it is too soon to tell, even acknowledging the result of climate gate. Mr Howard has said that prudent action would suggest a move to nuclear power to limit the reliance of fossil fuels. This is completely at odds with Rudd's plan to raise a tax. But Oakes doesn't seem to recognize it. Then Rudd claims to be a conservative on the issue of the environment. It is worth remembering that in election campaign mode, which Rudd is in, Rudd has previously claimed to be an economic conservative, before he wrote a childish article claiming that he wasn't. The proof is in his poor economic handling of issues. Rudd is not what he once claimed to be. He began using that tired phrase 'Working families' in relation to the environment. We know, now that the IPCC chief knew that the report the IPCC gave and which was used in Copenhagen to support those who believe in global warming, along with a six year old girl Rudd trotted out, was a fraud and that Rudd gave him one million dollars. Was that million dollars to buy the scientists silence? The problem is we don't have accountable government, we have the appearance of corruption. As we move towards an election some time this year, the electorate deserves to know.
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This article was written for Zaya Toma's site.