I'm sick of all the lies

LIE (noun) - "a false statement made with the deliberate intent to deceive"

Remember the lines in Billy Joel's melancholy song 'Honesty'?

"Honesty is such a lonely word, everyone is so untrue. Honesty is hardly ever heard, and mostly what I need from you."

That's the way I feel about the current political discourse in this country, though admittedly it goes way beyond the political sphere.



Why do so many politicians lie so often and with such impunity? Why does our media condone the practice and support it through its own deceptive reporting?

This has all been brought into sharp focus most recently by the actions of Dr Sharman Stone, a Liberal MP representing the Murray electorate. Why? Well she did something very few seem willing to do. She called the leader of her own team, Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia, a liar.

The surprise (and indeed shock) was not that people did not know he was a liar. Abbott is a serial fabricator. He regularly makes false statements that are deliberately designed to deceive. The shock was that Dr Stone actually called him one - you know, a liar.

LNP member George Christensen said that Dr Stone has gone "a step too far". What? Why? Because she actually told the truth? Because she accurately described what he had done?

This is crazy (and seems somewhat ironic). If someone is deliberately trying to deceive you they should be called out for it. Why dance around the fact with cute words. Is it now offensive to call someone a liar when they are?

When Leigh Sales was interviewing Tony Abbott on Monday's 7:30 why didn't she just say 'that is a lie' when he repeatedly said the circumstance of Cadbury funding was "radically different" to that of SPC? His own pre-election speech and LNP website propaganda proved that was a direct lie.

When something is an obvious untruth why do our journalists and interviewers not call a spade a spade? Are they afraid of being considered rude? Are they afraid of being abused by partisan hacks that take any confrontation as evidence of 'bias' regardless of its truthfulness?

Of course Abbott is not the only politician that lies. Many people just shrug their shoulders and say of politicians generally that 'they all lie', as if it's inevitable, tolerable - almost acceptable (particularly if the liar is on your 'side' of the political fence).

This attitude needs to change. Lies should not be acceptable. They are an abuse of trust.

Yes I know there are some lies that may be told to protect feelings, avoid personal harm etc, but generally speaking when a person is attempting to deliberately deceive you it is so they, or someone aligned to them, benefits at the expense of others. If politicians do that they should not be re-elected. If a media organisation does it you should boycott them. If a business does it you should not reward them with your custom.

We need a higher standard of accountability and ethics, and that goal starts with people saying they will not tolerate being lied to. Only then will there be any real change.

Alternatively, if we accept deception as something that is business as usual, trust in our public institutions won't just continue to diminish, it will evaporate completely.