Tell us the truth: Election campaign flooded with misinformation

This has descended into one of the most ­debauched and dishonest election campaigns in Queensland history. Every day voters are being assaulted with a plethora of misinformation from the parties, both major and minor. The unsubstantiated claims need to stop – Queensland voters deserve better, writes Steven Wardill. HAVE YOUR SAY

This has descended into one of the most ­debauched and dishonest election campaigns in Queensland history.

Every day voters are being assaulted with a plethora of misinformation from the parties, both major and minor. It’s a quagmire of unsubstantiated claims and it needs to stop.

 

 

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Mining magnate Clive Palmer has concocted the outlandish suggestion that the Palaszczuk government might be planning to introduce a “death tax”.

But Palmer has failed to produce a shred of evidence. It’s making Pauline Hanson’s suggestion that Labor and the LNP are on a unity ticket to raise the GST seem somewhat sensible.

Some of the questionable claims made during the campaign.

Labor is crying foul about Palmer spending millions of dollars spreading porkies.

Yet its own multimillion-dollar campaign about the LNP’s “cuts” is packed full of falsehoods.

Well-paid ministers are spending their days driving around in a bus emblazoned with “Don’t Risk LNP cuts” – a veritable convoy of misinformation.

Their taxpayer-funded spin doctors are churning out daily updates of supposed public service sackings based on costings of their ­opponent’s policies that are pure fiction.

On Monday, Palaszczuk government ministers fanned the flames of a faux controversy about how a teenager was handing out LNP how-to-vote cards after being caught on camera last year making comments that were branded racist during Schoolies.

They were dumb and offensive comments, no doubt. But to attempt to turn some unknown kid’s drunken indiscretion into a litmus test of Deb Frecklington’s leadership was morally bankrupt and demonstrated just how ruined our political discourse has become.

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Meanwhile, the LNP has been spreading its own misinformation about how the Palaszczuk administration was the only state to “cancel” its 2020 budget.

While it might be inconvenient for the LNP, the fact is that the Queensland budget was delayed to wait for official federal forecasts, just like budgets in every other jurisdiction in Australia as they battle the COVID-19 crisis.

Perhaps none of this should come as a surprise given both Annastacia Palaszczuk and Frecklington began their campaigns by spouting ridiculous claims about how they wouldn’t form a minority government if they fell short of the 47 seats required for a majority. They even doubled down by refusing to say whether they would quit the leadership to let someone else do the deal.

The LNP, Labor, Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson have made questionable claims during the election campaign.

All this is happening while we’re in the grip of a pandemic, faced with a recession and battling the worst unemployment rate in Australia.

They might want Queenslanders to back them into high office, yet they’re all ­behaving like frauds, fakes and phonies.

Originally published as Tell us the truth: Election campaign flooded with misinformation