Libs: How many lies & backflips?

[Wokko]

[stui magpie]

[Tannin]

Spot on, Stui. We need to be very clear here: a lie is a deliberate untruth intended to mislead from the start.

Gillard sort-of broke a sort-of promise, no more than that. She promised a price on carbon, not in the form of a tax, and the only way she could deliver that promise was with the tax deal she negotiated with the cross-benchers. Not a lie. Not even close. (But Abbott and co unquestionably lied when they called Gillard a liar, knowing full well that she wasn't.)

Stop the boats was not an is not a lie. It's a promise, and if Abbott fails to deliver on it, it's a broken promise, not a lie. Completely different things.

The no child will live in poverty by 1990 promise is borderline. Stui generously regards it as a broken promise. Fair enough. I see that particular promise as such a stupid and unattainable one that even an egomanic like Hawke must have known it was beyond his power to deliver. Well, probably. So I count it as a lie, but your view may differ.

So not guilty on the boats "lie", WPT. But make no mistake, the lies told by Abbott and his creeps are many and varied and repeated and deliberate, and they should indeed be listed here and exposed for what they are. Start with their massive and sustained lie about the budget "crisis", which they haven't even bothered to pretend to believe now that the lie has gained them government.

While on matters financial, throw in the absurd lie told by Hockey last week and repeated several times where he (a) threatened to bring the country to its knees by shutting down the government (i.e., Hockey threatened to do the Tea Party thing), and then (b) lied himself crooked saying that the opposition was doing the Tea Party destructive thing, knowing full well that the opposition had offered him a massive and immediate $100 billion increase in the debt limit - enough extra debt to allow the government to carry on exactly as planned in the existing Gillard-Swan budget for three more years.

[Dr Pie]

[Tannin]

Education:

[watt price tully]

[Wokko]

The whole 'boats' issue is a pile of shit to be honest, but not for the reasons generally reported. Remember Pauline? She rode a huge wave of anti-immigration. People in the electorate (lets not judge here) overwhelming didn't want multiculturalism and this issue was threatening to split the conservative vote or even create a viable 3rd party.

Rather than adopt One Nation policy to diffuse the issue, the Liberals had other plans. They can't severely limit immigration, their masters at the top end of town want cheap labour, so they conjure up the terror of the boat person. Never mind that overwhelmingly immigration is by plane and that numbers went UP under Howard, the slice of the electorate opposed to it was firmly back in the Liberal camp and One Nation faded away.

So these days we only hear about boat arrivals. You still hear the rumblings about demographic shifts but it's always pointed at refugees and largely boat arrivals. The whole issue is a cooked up 'problem' to keep the One Nation (or whoever would take their place) vote firmly entrenched for the Lib/Nats. Keep in mind at one point they had 1/3 of the QLD vote and 1/5 of NSW.

Not arguing for or against immigration of multiculturalism here, that's another thread, but the issue itself was a cooked up anti One Nation scheme that just keeps on giving for the LibNats.

[HAL]

Yes, I can hear you quite clearly, Wokko.

[3.14159]

[David]

[David]

[1061]

Being that we are a democracy if the majority feel those stickers are correct shouldn't that be Federal Government Policy.

[HAL]

I don't know anyone named that we are a democracy if the majority feel those stickers are correct shouldn't that be Federal Government Policy.

[watt price tully]

I think it was Keating who said:

The ALP are builders & the Libs are wreckers.

1. Allow me to introduce one Christopher Pyne. We finally get a fairer national scheme where education (at least school) education was going to get some much needed funding (Australia is a poor funder of education relative to other developed countries), where the right to a decent education does not rely on parental income

2. When Medicare was first introduced one John Howard was trying to get rid of it at all costs. The Libs have proven to debase the funding levels of medicare.

3. Super. Introduced by the ALP - who was opposed to it at the time - the Libs. Who has led the biggest abuses at taxpayers expenses the Libs - Costello allowed millionaires to abuse it my making it a legal tax dodge.

Keating got it right.

[Wokko]