Opinion: We need a fact-checking body for election scare campaigns

Forget a federal ICAC, just let voters know when they’re being taken for a ride, writes Peter Gleeson.

Forget a federal ICAC.

This country needs a national body with a simple brief to stop political parties peddling lies and disinformation, especially during elections.

Both major parties are guilty of scaremongering to pull votes. The Coalition Government did it in 2019 with its wild and inaccurate claims that Labor would introduce a death tax.

But the Labor Party are the gold standard when it comes to telling lies. In 2016, the so-called Mediscare campaign worked brilliantly, and brought Bill Shorten to within a whisker of pulling off a miracle victory.

Again, in 2022, we’re seeing the same lies and deception being peddled in the seat of Longman, based on retiree heaven, Bribie Island, which has a high pensioner demographic.

The campaign by the ALP suggesting that the Coalition will extend the cashless debit card system to pensioners is one of the great whoppers of modern day politics.

Unfortunately for the Coalition, pensioners are the most vulnerable and impressionable of our voter demographic.

They believe what they read and see and despite denial after denial, some of it will stick and the LNP will lose votes.

It’s a desperate tactic for a party that will do and say anything to win government. Surely, an independent federal authority could be established to fact check claims made by political parties and provide a balanced, truthful assessment.

Just as former ASIC boss Rod Sims called out dodgy corporate behaviour, we could get a similar terrier to weed out the porkies among politicians.

It would be a Commissioner with the resources and staff to publicly call out the mistruths, so that scared seniors can be assured that their families won’t be taxed on their death, or that they will be told how to spend 80 per cent of their pension.

The commissioner could also explain that Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese never advised the Hawke government on policy, and that Labor has not joined China’s CCP on defence strategy.

The Local Government Association of Queensland has set up a fact-checking authority which tells the public what is fact and what is fiction leading into state council elections.

That same template could be set up in Canberra because, frankly, the public deserves better public discourse than what we are getting. What we receive now is an ever increasing desperation from political parties to scare voters on crucial issues such as health and the economy.

How will Clive Palmer keep interest rates below 3 per cent until 2027? Does he have the legislative ability to do so?

The biggest whopper being perpetrated in this election is the epiphany Albanese has had on coalmines.

He’s actually trying to convince the Australian public that a Left-faction prime minister will support ongoing coalmining.

It’s impossible. Albanese would be rolled within a week because his factional comrades are wedded to the Greens on coalmines and climate change. Gone by 2030. Period.

But Australians are not fools. They worked out Shorten and they’re doing the same thing with Albanese.

We need a statutory authority to call this rubbish out.

Originally published as Opinion: We need a fact-checking body for election scare campaigns