Politicians wishing to run down their opponents in the eyes of the public are quick to level accusations of dishonesty. But these “lies” aren’t always what they seem.
Everyone has heard of the expression “Lies, damn lies, and statistics”. It usually crops up in discussions of politics and warns us to be suspicious of numbers which may be inserted into arguments, particularly during election campaigns.
The ABC has a fact-checking unit for sorting out this problem and achieving some semblance of balance.
But consider another, more rhetorical aspect about lies which muddies the picture for us. Politicians are often accusing each other of lying.
On Saturday night on ABC News 24, Liberal minister Gladys Berejiklian fumed that Labor ran a dishonest scare campaign throughout the New South Wales election. The Coalition banged that drum for many weeks, seeking to discredit the ALP and its union allies who maligned privatisation in all its manifestations, not only of sections of the electricity network but also of the health system.
So outraged was the Coalition that it set up a website Stop Labor Lies and made a Facebook post where people can apparently learn “the truth” and the “facts” of the matter according to the Coalition.
Read more: Kids reading mean tweets shows the destructive power of bullying.
Partisan accusations that opponents are lying occur often in politics because they can advantage any politician wishing to run down opponents in the eyes of the public. Tony Abbott put it best in 2004 when he said:
Top Comments
Interesting.
We ALL know just who are the biggest liars, & it is not the Labor party--although they are not "bad", they are not in the race compared to the bloody Liberals! If the citizens of Australia told as many lies, as often as this mob did, we would all be in big trouble with the authorities, yet ALL these politicians think it is their "divine right" to be able to tell as many lies as they want, & have no repurcussions! Bastards!