Promises, promises

Does anyone actually fall for the avalanche of election promises we’re getting at the moment?  Tax cuts here, tax cuts there, free stuff for everyone (living in a marginal seat, anyway).  All those things they’ve dismissed as unimportant for years suddenly become the highest priority for the government.  It just beggars belief that the politicians expect us to fall for it and vote for them on the basis of a bunch of promises they’ve cobbled together (no doubt based on market research) quickly during the election campaign, rather than consider their record in government and their longstanding philosophies.  But they do apparently.

A lot of good all the promises have been doing for the government, too.  Regardless of the lather the media get themselves into over the smallest changes in opinion polls, it seems that the fundamentals are hardly moving.  The ups and downs of a percentage point or two in the voting intentions for each party are merely blips, quite likely just sample error.  It seems to me that many people have just made up their minds that John Howard is no longer the man for the job (Peter Costello never will be), and that Kevin Rudd presents an acceptable face for Labor.

I can understand the loss of Howard’s support.  I’ve found him and the government to have become increasingly sneaky and arrogant over their time in office.  They did some good things early on, I have no arguments with things like the GST, the Workplace Relations Act and taking the axe to the public service.  However, since events like the Tampa (a shame on Australia’s name), and John Howard’s ever increasing desire to crawl further and further up George W Bush’s arse, and especially since gaining the Senate majority, they’ve become incredibly slippery and arrogant, and abusing their power.

The slippery, sneaky nature of John Howard is illustrated by his “sorry but not an apology” over interest rates last week.  The trouble over saying sorry started on Thursday when Howard was asked why, if he was not responsible for the interest rate rise, he was apologising for it.

“Well, I said I was sorry they’d occurred. I don’t think I actually used the word ‘apology’. I think there is a difference between the two things.”

And then we have this gem - asked if it was still true to say that Australian families had never been better off, he said:

“It’s true to say that the generality supports that proposition, but in individual cases, no,”

which begs the question of why do politicians set themselves up to be shot down by making such sweeping claims?  Ego? Remoteness from reality?

A couple of final points about this election:

1. why do the parties have their official campaign launches now, rather than they actually started campaigning (which in reality is about a year ago, not just the last few weeks)?  It seems crazy but there is a very cynical reason for it …. official campaign launch is the day the gravy train stops for the sitting MPs and their salaries and government funded expenses stop, so they leave it as late as they think they can get away with.  Sham, yes absolutely!
2. On 4 Corners tonight, there was a man who’d always voted conservative and was now about to vote Labor for the first time …. I have some news for him, he’s not actually breaking his lifelong voting habit.