Give it a rest, Bartho:
The resounding success of Labor’s “Mediscare” strategy at the weekend raises the disturbing prospect that future elections will become contests determined by which of the political parties can construct the biggest lie of the campaign.
There is little doubt that Labor’s claim that the Coalition planned to privatise Medicare had a significant impact on the outcome of the election. Labor knew it was biting, hence it became the dominant message, almost the only message, within its advertising and social media strategies in the final phase of the campaign.
The Coalition was considering the outsourcing of the construction and perhaps operation of a new payments platform for Medicare, an option Malcolm Turnbull was forced to abandon, but even the Australian Medical Association declared that describing that as a privatisation of Medicare was “overreach.”
…It is Adolf Hitler who is credited with having identified the power of the “Big Lie” — the telling of untruths so “colossal” that the “broad masses of a nation” would never imagine that anyone would distort the truth to such an extent.
…Thus the only obvious disciplines on an escalation of the “biggest lie” campaign strategy in future elections would be either the failure of the strategy under scrutiny or punishment for the party by voters at a subsequent election if the lie was ultimately exposed and voters felt cheated enough to punish the liars.
Yes, it is massaging the truth. But, seriously, Bartho, what about the rampant Coalition lies you spouted and supported during the RSPT debacle? What about Turnbull’s embodiment of lying in his betrayal of liberal ideals? What about the Budget of Lies that turned the entire election into an exercise in delusion? Or the Coalition’s ceaseless lying about carbon pricing? Or its outrageous lies about negative gearing over the past three months?
Get some perspective, mate. Labor pulled a fast one that the Coalition would be proud of. Leave Hitler out of it.
What we need is more truth from both sides of the isle and that starts with an honest media.
