When Tony Abbott launched his campaign in 2013, he told us “you can’t trust what Labor tells you.”
He said Kevin Rudd was “running the most dishonest election campaign in our history.”
This was the ad that had raised his ire.
The Liberal Party don’t like the truth to be told. In fact, it can cost you your job if you dare to tell the truth.
On day one, Abbott sacked senior public servants who had advocated for action on climate change. Even researchers and scientists who tried to warn us of the danger were sacked.
Very quickly afterwards, the head of Infrastructure Australia, after speaking about the dangers of political influence in determining investment priorities, also found himself out of a job.
Look at what happened to Gilian Triggs when she tried to draw attention to the plight of children in detention. Knowing they couldn’t sack her, they tried everything to discredit her and to make her leave.
After years of refusing to confirm or deny anything about boats, Peter Dutton has been out today telling us that another boat has been intercepted and that, even though the boats are still coming, the people smugglers’ trade has been smashed. Both those things can’t be true at the same time.
This week we have seen Dr Paul Stevenson, a trauma specialist and Order of Australia recipient who has been working with asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru, also sacked because he spoke publically of the tragedy he had witnessed in the camps.
This campaign began with the police, with media in tow, raiding the homes of people who may have had access to leaked documents from NBNco telling us what was going on with the rollout.
And today we hear the story of Dr Lynn Simpson, one of the country’s most experienced and respected live export veterinarians, who wrote a confidential government report about animal abuse in the trade which was inadvertently published by the Department on its website. Despite the publication having nothing to do with her, Dr Simpson was sacked.
There is no suggestion that any of the information from these various examples was incorrect. The mistake they made was to tell the truth.
If the Free Trade Agreements are so good, why can’t we see them? Why should we have to rely on whistleblowers to find out what we are committing to?
Why didn’t they release the treasury modelling of who benefits most from property tax concessions?
Why didn’t they release the modelling of proposed deregulation of university fees?
After all, we are paying for all of these reports.
If you can’t level with the people who are footing the bill, the citizens of Australia, then you have no right to ask us to trust you.
What are you hiding?
