Opinion: Politicians who lie will be caught out

It’s only a week into the election campaign and already politicians and candidates have been fudging the truth, writes Kylie Lang.

It’s bad enough Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese didn’t know the nation’s unemployment rate, but his scramble to recover from the colossal blunder reminds us of what else we despise in politicians other than ignorance: the fudging of truth.

With infuriating regularity, many people who profess to represent us appear to be more interested in representing themselves, or misrepresenting as the case may be.

Let’s start with “Albo”.

Monday’s press conference clanger when the Labour leader showed how little he understood his party’s bread and butter – jobs, amid its pledge to increase wages if elected – was a disastrous start to the campaign.

Under which rock had Mr Albanese been hiding to stumble on such a basic economic question, then get the answer wrong and say, ‘sorry, I’m not sure what it is”?

It’s not as if the 4 percent jobless rate is new information – the impressive figure made headlines throughout March and was championed by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in his budget speech less than a fortnight before.

Mr Albanese also couldn’t name the cash rate (which benchmarks interest rates), despite it being the same low 0.1 percent since November 2020.

But it was what he did next that also warrants scrutiny.

After declaring a few hours later he was “human”, by the next day Mr Albanese had morphed into an economic giant.

Anthony Albanese on the campaign trail during the week. Picture: Toby Zerna

Touting his tertiary qualifications – he studied economics at uni (big whoop, so did I many moons ago) – he took a leap and revised his resume.

Mr Albanese claimed he had been an “economic policy adviser” to the Hawke Government.

Try a research officer for a junior minister, Tom Uren, whose portfolios included territories, local government and administrative services, none of which had influence over economic policy. The hard-left Mr Uren was also a harsh critic of the Hawke-Keating centre-right economic reforms.

But don’t let that get in the way of a good spin.

This week, the Liberal Party in South Australia sent a letter to households that made false claims about its candidate for Mayo, Allison Bluck.

“As the manager of the Kangaroo Island Nature Trail, I am passionate about the environment,” Ms Bluck said in the letter, which spruiked spending on “improving bushfire resilience on Kangaroo Island”.

Oops! The manager of said trail is Alison Buck, but what’s a few missing ‘l’s in the big picture of image promotion?

The party said the letter was “an early draft that was incorrectly sent” while Ms Bluck admitted “it incorrectly stated my occupation” and “I’m sorry about the error”.

Hark back to mid-2020 when Queensland Education Minister Grace Grace was accused of exaggerating her CV.

Ms Grace’s parliamentary biography stated she had a “masters/graduate diploma level” qualification from Harvard University after completing its trade union program in 1993.

Liberal Member for Mayo Allison Bluck Picture: Facebook

But the program director contacted The Courier-Mail, and Ms Grace, to advise that only a “certificate of completion” had been handed out.

Ms Grace, who denied wrongdoing, revised her bio in early 2021.

Trevor Ruthenberg’s parliamentary biography also came under fire, in 2018.

It stated the former LNP member for Kallangur, endorsed to run in the Longman by-election, had been awarded an Australian Service Medal while in the Royal Australian Air Force.

The medal is for distinguished service in peacekeeping zones and non-war operations, which is great, except Mr Ruthenberg never received one. He got the standard Australian Defence Medal.

Mr Ruthenberg “had no clue” how the error occurred and apologised.

Then on February 26 this year as floodwaters rose, Brisbane councillor Andrew Wines jetted off to World Expo in Dubai.

Not that you’d know if you’d checked his Enoggera electorate’s Facebook page.

Cr Wines paid to sponsor a post showing him inspecting flooding that morning. The post remained up until February 28, with Cr Wines responding to comments without acknowledging he was overseas, prompting the opposition to accuse him of lying, something he denied.

Politicians aren’t unique in “tweaking” things to suit – people do it all the time, look at dating sites – but if you hold public office, be prepared to be called out on porkies.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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LOVE

– The spectacle of the Brisbane to Gladstone Yacht Race. The question on everyone’s lips at the launch event on Good Friday: will Wistari, the 2021 ​and five-time ​winner of The Courier-Mail Cup, make it number six?

– More proof of the link between body and mind, with a University of Sydney study showing kids who play two hours’ sport a week while at school achieve higher grades.

LOATHE

– Minister Yvette D’Ath asking for a review of Queensland’s health system, but only the parts the Commonwealth is responsible for – what a joke. And surprise, only four of the 40-plus review recommendations involve the Palaszczuk government, which runs the health department. All hail the blundering status quo.

– People who seem incapable of putting hand over mouth when coughing in public. Is it really too much to ask?