Saturday, June 8, 2013

Why blog? 98 days

I plan to have a bit of fun.  Show off some of my cooking successes and bemoan the hopefully few failures, and generally complain about the poor standard of political debate in this country.

In 98 days, I will be with a few friends quietly crying while Tony Abbott takes on the PMs mantel.  Assuming things continue as they are today.

I am not a member of either party.  I describe myself as centre left, so am pretty disillusioned with everyone.

But why I am writing this is because my biggest bug bear is the lies that are being allowed free rein.  So for every lie I come across, I am going to call it for a lie and provide the evidence of why it is a lie - irrespective of who makes it.  Which is more than the Australian press is doing.

So the lies I hate the most (at the moment) are:

- boat people are illegal.  They aren't.  They have the right to seek asylum under the UN Human Rights Convention, which Australia is a signatory to.  Every politician knows this.  These days they ignore it to spruik a rhetoric they know to be a lie.

 - Australia is being flooded by asylum seekers.  This is the easiest lie to disprove, but the lie the Australian press refuses to kill off.  Here is the correct information from the Australian Human Rights Commission.  http://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/2012-face-facts-chapter-3

- The Indonesian Government has agreed to receive boats that are turned back.  They haven't as of 31 May 2013.  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-31/ambassador-says-indonesia-opposes-policy-of-turning-back-boats/4726842

- Australia's economy is going down the gurgler.  It is not.  While it could always be stronger, Australia has an economy that the rest of the world envies.  http://theconversation.com/punching-above-our-weight-sizing-up-australias-economy-10153 Our economy isn't perfect and we are coming into a period of contraction.  But compared with the rest of the world, we are miles ahead.

- Deficits are bad and our level of debt is appalling.  Deficits might be and they might not be.  It depends on the world circumstances.  And our level of debt - well check the comparisons for yourself.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/27/debt-deficit-oecd-countries-data

So this has got a few of my pet hates off my chest.  I intend to post every political lie I become aware of for the next 98 days with the facts - and I don't care who makes the lie.  Any party that lies and I know of it, I will post it.



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