This is a very useful tool put up by the ABC to track how well the Abbott Government is delivering on its pre-election promises.

12 delivered. 44 in progress. 4 stalled. 6 BROKEN.

You can have a look at each promise and where it sits in the ‘delivered', 'in progress', 'stalled' or 'broken' categories.

Of course not all promises are equal in their significance.

So… 12 delivered and 6 broken. How acceptable is that? Is it good enough if the government has broken even one promise? Should the government somehow be penalised by the high court for breaking promises? Should legislation be drafted to make sure that broken promises result in very significant penalties for all MPs in the government, with the highest penalty being incurred by the PM and progressively lesser penalties down through the ranks?

Surely what we need is a concerted effort to make sure that promises don’t get broken and therefore that no one in the government or opposition makes promises in the lead-up to elections unless they are absolutely certain that they can keep them.

<<This is a very useful tool put up by the ABC to track how well the Abbott Government is delivering on its pre-election promises.>>

C'mon now Ludwig, pull the other one--the Lefty ABC is going to be the adjudicator!

ROFLAO

SPQR, Whaaat??

Boy oh boy, what an incredibly dismissive attitude.

No the ‘lefty’ ABC is not going to be the adjudicator. You and me, the voters, are going to be the judges, based on this NEUTRAL promise tracker.

No you shouldn’t just take it as gospel as it is presented. But no matter which way you look at it, it gives a pretty good perspective of how all the promises are being dealt with. Before this appeared, it was extremely difficult to get any sort of realistic perspective of this at all.

Ludwig
The promise tracker is a useful tool as you rightly point out. As for penalties for "broken promises" by politicians, it could be unworkable, unless we reintroduce the stocks for wayward poly's. I think a bank of about 100 will just about do the job and a "Liberal" supply of rotten tomatoes for the use of the general public. Now, what about floggings?

Ludwig,
Now I'll be upfront and admit I have researched your proposition--but here is my misgiving: how do you prevent someone from voting more than once? Sure you can permit only one vote per IP address. But most people can access a huge number of IP addresses (and nifty people can change the IP address on the one device).

I wouldnt do it --and I'm sure most on the right side of politics would stoop so low. But I could well imagine those dastardly Greens & co spam voting. It would become just another avenue of agitation.

That’s not quite what I had envisaged, Paul.

What we need is something like the ACCC, which can assess just exactly what constitutes a promise and therefore what constitutes a broken promise, and who in the government is responsible for breaking a promise, and have the power to impose penalties.