John Howard can already be credited with telling one of the greatest bald-faced lies in Australian politics. In 1995, the federal liberal party was roundly defeated in an election which seemed impossible to lose; the liberal party at that point went into the election planning on introducing a goods and services tax (GST) in Australia if they were elected.
The election lost, their party in disarray, Howard took over the leadership of the party yet again and in a public media scrum, in front of dozens of cameras, microphones and eyewitnesses, squarely declared:
There's no way that a GST will ever be part of our policy. Never, ever. It's dead. It was killed by the voters in the last election. Any suggestion that I left the door open is absolute nonsense. I didn't. I never will. The last election killed the GST. It's not part of our policy and it won't be part of our policy at any time in the future.It is impossible to argue that this is anything but an unwavering promise that the GST would never be reintroduced by the liberal party, yet, just a little more than 3 years later, Howard reneged on his promise, proving it to be a lie, and introduced the GST into Australia.
This however is not the end of the man's perfidity; indeed, the release of his biography has shown how little respect Howard has for the notion of truthfulness and honesty. The seventh commandment, that being "Thou shalt not bear false witness" is widely accepted as the notion that you shouldn't lie. From what can be gathered by Howard's actions, it's possible to circumvent this through sophistry and weasel words.
Not lying indeed is an admirable trait; honesty is a good moral attitude to have, and while there may be valid reasons from time to time to stretch or bend the truth, doing so for self gratification and self achievement seems a less than moral reason.
When challenged once of his reneging an election promise, "Honest John", as he was once misleadingly nicknamed coined the term "non-core promise"; that being that some election promises were core promises which must be fulfilled, and others were seemingly non-core promises which could be ignored at will.
A non-core promise? A non-binding promise? Ah, a lie. A dirty, rotten, sneaky lie. Let's be honest, a promise that you do not intend to fulfill is not to be obscured by weasel words or sneaky alternate definitions, it is a lie, a dishonorable statement of non-fact.
So, it should come as no surprise to anyone then what his wife is quoted as having told the authors of the recent biography, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald. It is, indeed, most enlightening.
We also know from Janette Howard that, in the Prime Minister's household, there is a clear understanding between a firm commitment and a non-firm commitment ... "You talk about a whole lot of things when you're trying to convince people to do things ... but you don't go back and honour every single one of those unless you have made a firm commitment about it, and John wasn't into making firm commitments." (SMH, "One roast could save another", July 21 2007, Peter Hartcher)So, here we have a man (and his wife for that matter), espousing christian values while blithely discussing the notion of a promise which is binding and a promise which is not binding.
Or, to boil things down to the roots of the matter, here is a christian man who apparently frequently lies in order to get things, and sometimes (not often) what he promises will be real, not a lie.
It would seem that the Australian penchant of giving people nicknames which are the opposite of their literal meaning (e.g., calling redheads 'bluey') was dead on the mark in declaring Howard "Honest John".
References:
- Sydney Morning Herald, "One roast could have saved another"
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