Pollies Promises

We’ve heard plenty about the alleged lying of our current Prime Minister.

In fact, she’s been vilified to the point where it’s been brought to the attention of the media authority.

Fair enough. She did promise there wouldn’t been a price on carbon imposed by her government. The fact that her crystal ball had a software glitch, leaving her unable to forecast the wash-up in the reps is somehow ignored.

The other inconveniently ignored fact is that you’d presume that Green voters combined with Labor voters at the time of the election would have largely supported a price on carbon, and these two cohorts with the independents united to put her in power.

It's called democracy, I believe.

The Raving Right has never been much good at dealing with more than one fact at a time, so I guess their collective inability to understand these complexities is unsurprising.

Perhaps they will be able to follow something a little less complex.

I refer to promises made by the current LNP government in Queensland. I live here, so feel qualified to comment.

Prior to the election, Newman made many promises. Let’s look at just two of them.

The first deals with vehicle registrations. I’ll quote –

A CanDo LNP Government will save families $15-20 a year by freezing family car registration fees for the first term of an LNP government.

Wow – now that’s a great promise. Trouble is, if you look at the paperwork I received yesterday and compare it with last years’ rego (under that heinous Labor government) you’ll find that instead of saving $15 - $20 as promised, I’ll actually be paying $3 more.  Now that's not a lot - but unless in my dotage I've lost all mathematical ability, "more" is not "less". It's certainly not the $20 less promised.

Last years' bill under Labor.

This years' under the LNP. Freeze? What freeze?

Surely there must be some kind of mistake. I know – I’ll subtract $20 from the fee and send the balance. If they complain, I’ll just ask them to go and talk to Campbell.

He promised after all. It looks like CanDo’s freeze has melted already.

Then there’s the issue of public servants.

Here’s another promise –

An LNP Government will also commit to no forced redundancies.
Restructuring will be managed through natural attrition, career advancement and training opportunities.
We will always find a job within the public sector for hardworking public servants to contribute to a better Queensland. That's why an LNP Government will protect and revitalise front line service roles in conjunction with unions and manage the overall growth in the entire public service.

This from yesterday’s FOTN* -

But Mr Newman, who campaigned ahead of the March 24 election on a platform of no forced redundancies in the public service, refused to confirm that full-time staff faced the axe.

It gets confusing. Who should you believe? CanDo before the election or CanDo after the election?

I’m offering a free calendar to the reader submitting the best short and sharp description of Newman’s election promises. Something from the same genre as “Juliar” would do nicely.

I've bookmarked the LNP's promises page. Actually I'm surprised it's still there. A screen shot is probably a good idea.



* The Australian - The Fart of the Nation.