THERE’S a greeting card joke that goes: "How can you tell when a politician is lying? Answer – his lips are moving."
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It's a bit unfair but an understandable perception because in modern-day politics it's hard to find a politician who will speak in a frank, fearless and upfront manner, no matter what the consequences.
The main reason so many of our leaders obfuscate when asked the difficult questions is they fear that telling the truth, being open with the facts, will get them into trouble.
Let's look at some recent case studies. A sharp recollection by 3AW host Neil Mitchell caught out the federal Labor leader Bill Shorten telling a porkie in 2013 on whether he'd spoken to Kevin Rudd on leadership matters during the maelstrom of the ALP's "killing season".
Shorten apologised to Mitchell in June this year for what he described as "the mistake I made". Hmmm. A "mistake" implies an error, a slip or a blunder. I'm not sure that telling a lie can be brushed off as a mistake. The better, more honest wording would have been, "I apologise for telling a lie."
The opposition leader went on to explain that he had made the "mistake" because he had not wanted to add fuel to the Labor leadership bonfire that was blazing at the time. In other words, he had judged that telling the truth would have sparked a huge and politically unhelpful story for Shorten and the Labor government. In short, the truth would have got him in trouble.
Then there's the contemporary case of the now-former federal speaker Bronwyn Bishop's handling of questions about that expensive, taxpayer-funded chopper dash between Melbourne and Geelong.
Bishop was reluctant to apologise at first, saying her decision to pay back the money was apology enough. Eventually and belatedly, Bishop realised there is only one word that truly conveys an apology, and that is "sorry". The only interpretation of Bishop's initial reluctance to use the word is that she and her advisers feared it would have been an admission of wrongdoing and serve only to catapult her into yet more trouble.
The Bishop saga is the ideal case study for today's politicians. Obfuscation, hiding, denial, blaming others, blaming the system, giving the money back, setting up a review – these ways of trying to appease the public and the media just don't work. It's one of the reasons the electorate has such a low opinion of politicians.
What the voters desperately want to see, but is sadly missing from our political leaders, is quite simple – not easy, but simple. We want them to admit responsibility, to fess up as soon as they've been caught, maybe even before they're caught – and apologise for the wrongdoing. Say "sorry". Say "I was wrong". What a pleasant surprise that would be for all. It may still result in the politician being sent to the "naughty corner" for a spell, but it could also help rebuild the fragile relationship between voters and politicians which has been on the downward slide for so many years.
