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.

Ludwig,

Whooops I think I might have misread what you meant

<<What we need is something like the ACCC, which can assess just exactly what constitutes a promise and therefore what constitutes a broken promise>>

But picking such a body would be a huge problem --and if the ABC was the selector!

So Ludwig, I guess come next election we will have to choose between broken promises, and getting things done, boats, carbon tax repeal, to name just two, or total mismanagement of our finances with failure after failure.

As for broken promises, how do you think you would cope if you had made promises only to find out you have no money to spend. But at least the up side is Abbotts ridiculous PP scheme is unlikely to get through.

Something the look forward to, hey!

<< As for broken promises, how do you think you would cope if you had made promises only to find out you have no money to spend… >>

Rehctub, the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances. It is NOT acceptable for them to make promises and then renege on them by way of them not being financially viable.

A promise needs to be a promise, end of story. It is simply not acceptable for promises to be broken. And when they get broken at the top level of or society, by our government, then there is just no way in the world that it should be accepted.

We absolutely need something like APES (Australian Promise Enforcement Scheme) to make sure that governments, and individual politicians, who break promises, are seriously punished for it.

That'right SPUD there are no crooks in the Liberal Party, just have a look Liberal MP's and the ICAC in NSW. Are you that naive? Sorry you are that naive. Remember the Liberal Jackie Kelly in the seat of Penrith, No!

Well where do we rate the promise to 'Stop the Boats' now that the 157 asylum seekers have landed on Australian soil? The spin now is to be claiming 'we said we would get them back to the Howard level of 2-3 boats a years not that we would stop them completely'.

"the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances"

Thats a much bigger issue, the way things are structured now there is as I understand it far to much detail thats not available to an opposition. The processes are set up help the incumbents rather than to provide transparency to either the people of the country or the subset represented by the opposition of the day.

Clearly some promises made in the hope of being elected are rash and to often politicsl pretexts for breaking committments are very flimsy but there is also a good case to be made for the true state of affairs to be much more visible.

R0bert

@Steele,

<<157 asylum seekers have landed on Australian soil>>

Wake-up old chap,and use proper terminology, they are plain and simply economic migrants or illegal immigrants. Having sailed from safe haven India there is no way you can sustain the "asylum seeker" pretence.

I think the APES idea is admirable. If politicians knew they would be hit HARD with a penalty then they would tend not to make Promises that are not "core" Promises & we'd get some truth in Political Advertising during an Election run up. Yair right.

Welcome back Steelie. Getting a bit warm over there luv.

The ABC is a joke isn't it? Nothing like what the national broadcaster was years ago. All this does is add to the mockery that is supposed to be political journalism that feeds off media created controversy. It is entertainment for the peanut gallery whose attention span is limited to headlines and who seek their daily jollies from venting their spleen.

and if the ABC was the selector!
SPQR,
What ? That home-grown UN ?

.....Rehctub, the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances. It is NOT acceptable for them to make promises and then renege on them by way of them not being financially viable.

Give me a break Ludwig, labor themselves didn't even know from one week to the next where we were finically. For that matter, neither did treasury.

....We absolutely need something like APES (Australian Promise Enforcement Scheme) to make sure that governments, and individual politicians, who break promises, are seriously punished for it.

Another thing we need is for senior ministers to hold professional indemnity insurance, so at least when we get wasteful governments like the previous 2-3 we can at least get our money back and they receive a pay cut per claim.

We can even fund their premiums, but not their excess or increases due to claims.

I wrote:

<< Rehctub, the government and opposition need to have a full handle on the financial situation and know what they can and cannot promise in accordance with said finances. It is NOT acceptable for them to make promises and then renege on them by way of them not being financially viable. >>

Rehctub, you replied:

<< Give me a break Ludwig, labor themselves didn't even know from one week to the next where we were finically. For that matter, neither did treasury. >>

Yes financial management has been dismal, especially under Rudd. But that is no excuse for pollies making promises that they later find they can’t keep due to budgetary constraints.

If they don’t know whether something can or will be funded, or funded to the extent to fulfil the promise, then they must NOT make the promise in the first place.

We’ve got to get an ‘APES’ type system in place to make sure that this happens.

Hey, it isn’t difficult. All pollies need to do is to say that they endeavour to do their best to achieve certain things, without promising that they will do them.

Pollies shouldn’t be making ANY promises, given that they never really know what variables there are that might come and disrupt their plans.

Perhaps we should just ban political promises altogether!

Funny how the Fact Checker doesn't agree with the trend in the polls.

The constant pre-election statements of "no surprises, no new taxes, no cuts, maintain funding and full and open disclosure" were assumed to be clear and reassuring promises of intent but turned out to be blatant opportunistic lies. I consider that to be five promises.

Now they are lying about lying - as if they cancel each other out.

Since Hockey has admitted to New Zealand there was no budget "emergency", which version is true and which is the lie?
http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/australian-economy-is-not-in-trouble-joe-hockey-tells-nz-20140726-zx6ie.html

It is a very sly way to make news, with the emphasis on 'make'. The way of hacks who invent controversy to win a dumbed-down audience.

Not that the ABC (and SBS) are alone in that, but they are swinging from the taxpayers teat so better is expected of them. Maybe that affirmative action recruitment policy needs to be reviewed and the focus returned to merit in selections, with job criteria that are about the job, not kowtowing to PC where the quick-witted but maybe not so competent are given the leg up to jobs.

OTB, why do you level such strong condemnation at the ABC?

Surely this promise tracker thing is a positive move on their part. Aren’t you being a tad overcritical in seeing it purely as a negative thing?

Ludwig,

You mean the ABC which hyped the story that Oz border control personnel had deliberately caused asylum scammers to suffer burns?

The ABC which regularly runs promos for Multiculturalism.

The ABC which gives exclusive coverage of the warmist-IPCC narrative of climate change.

Would you reeeeeeeeeeeally want such a body selecting or overseeing a keep-the-bastards-honest committee?

Yes SPQR, the ABC that sometimes does some things that I don’t like, has on this occasion done something that I think is top-rate... which goes a long way towards keeping the 'bastards' honest by way of giving the public a very useful tool on which to judge their honesty.

Organizations, e.g., ABS, SBS, Getup, etc, attract Lefties, Greenies & the Politically Correct. Scouts, Schools, Children's Church Groups, etc, Attract Paedophile's. Bikies & Hot Rod Group, Security firms, etc, attract Crims.

That's not to say that all the people associated with these groups ARE "those" types. Unfortunately the bad ones are the only ones you hear about therefore the "Organization" get stuck with a certain profile. That attracts more of the bad types until the Organization gets overwhelmed with the bad types.

That's all a bit convoluted but I hope it's understandable.

Ludwig,

Heh, heh, modern times: if I criticise I am easily dismissed as an 'anti-'. Not PC to prick the ABC's conscience.

The impact of the Net has resulted in a race to the bottom, where cheap and trashy shock, horror and sex prevail. They call it news.

The problem is that there simply are not enough social and political happenings to warrant the coverage the ABC and others provide. I am also critical of the privates you should notice but they don't have 'fact checker or this recent 'initiative' to pad and make news. They also have their ways of inventing 'newsworthy' incidents. The thread is about 'Promise Tracker'.

Now I appreciate that there are some out there whose lives are so limited that they must rage to get their daily buzz from railing at the world, laced with humiliation opf some to bolster their egos. - Like the old fishwives on the bus indulging themselves with their 'Ain't it awful' game. There is also the media networks' bean counters' dream of cheap reporting by using the same old talking heads in the studio trawling reports from around the world to add their spin. I am sure some are so lazy that they even take their leads from Oz blogs and forums.

However that is not what I expect from the public national broadcasters. It is a very poor exchange for my tax dollars.

The straightforward reporting of facts was always enough, but it now seems that there is a sizeable rump of producers and 'personalities' in the ABC who do not believe that the general population has the wit, or is it the correct 'Progressive' ideology, to make sense of independent reports, to form their own judgement and be advised accordingly. There always seems to be that non-declared 'Progressive' editorial policy at work.

But my real concerns are:

- the patronising attitude to viewers who apparently cannot be trusted to digest frank factual reporting and make up their own minds; and

- the making of news through artifices as 'fact checker' and now, 'Promise Tracker'.

Did the ABC offer the Promise Tracker service whilst Labour was in power?

Personally I find Julia Gillard's assurance there will not be a carbon tax under the Government she leads, 4 days out from the election, in a different category to Tony Abbotts repeated policy statements: stop the boats, repeal the carbon tax, no surprises, no new taxes, no cuts, and full and open disclosure. I don't remember either of them using the word promise.

Unfortunately in Gillard's case the statement proved to be calculated and an outright lie. Abbott has certainly dropped the ball on no new taxes, no surprises, no cuts and open disclosure, but did he intentionally lie. I hear the loud roar of "YES", but as much as I don't like it, Abbotts 'lies' are more of the political-speak we have across the board all over the world. Every politician is guilty.

I have to laugh when I see some on this Forum jumping for joy that one boat slipped through on a legal technicality and now are trying to claim its a broken promise. If we as a population of voters are so one-eyed how can we expect bi-partisan cooperation from those we put in government. A willingness to work together for the betterment of our nation needs to start at the grass roots level. Going by what I read on OLO, I'm not expecting it in my lifetime.

Yes it would have been good to have had this promise checker thing for the last government, and the one before it…. and the one before that…..

Well we will presumably have it for evermore now.

And yes we do need to be careful about just what constitutes a broken promise.

Bringing a boatload of Indian asylum seeking economic opportunists to the mainland as part of a deal for Indian authorities to talk to them and for us to get them repatriated or otherwise dealt with as quickly as possible… and which is a special one-off event…. does not constitute a broken promise as far as I am concerned.

I am not going to bother to detail the very serious reasons why 'fact checker' and now 'promise tracker' are farcical sideshows and will have opposite (negative) effects to those proposed for them.

The superficiality, falseness and idiocy should be apparent. What about the obligation of an incoming government to keep the promises of the previous administration for instance? The partisans here would scoff at that of course.

I have already noted that the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster doesn't seem to believe that its viewers are capable of sifting through facts and arriving at their own opinion. I have said that the ABC might see itself as a force for social change and it does, but its declared editorial policy is silent on that. The problem is that the ABC is not accountable to the public as private media outlets are directly and almost immediately held to account by shareholders.

It is the media and activists that coerce and trap politicians into 'promises', which are usually populist anyhow.

What about political leaders and the ABC's senior management coming clean and doing something positive by saying outright what all good, responsible, thinking citizens know already: that political parties aim at and are about is goal setting. 'Promise' is not what they are about and we all know that, but some who enjoy fighting and 'dissing' (sl) as a parlour game would never admit that.

'Promises' are usually words put into their mouths by their opponents and by cr@p reporter hacks angling for controversy to sell to a dumbed-down audience. Most media interviews are just 'bait-the-guest' anyhow and luckless politicians and others people of note are treated as marks for entertainment. The prevailing PC provides endless ways to trap and humiliate a mark.

Some quick comments as usual and do with them what you may.

How about we put a bias tracker on the ABC ?

<< It is the media and activists that coerce and trap politicians into 'promises'… >>

<< 'Promises' are usually words put into their mouths by their opponents and by cr@p reporter hacks angling for controversy to sell to a dumbed-down audience. >>

Oh phoowey, OTB!

Abbott would fare much better in a promise-tracker tally if it took into account his promises to the IPA and its owners, not just his promises to the people.

…Oh phoowey, OTB!
Ludwig ?
You'd better have a rethink about that. otb does have a quite valid point there, from a realistic perspective that is.
It doesn't matter what you say, you can't escape the fact that you're supporting a far more incompetent political party than us conservatives. The proof is there for all the world to see.
How you can still support them is beyond all logic & reason. Without exception every Labor supporter I know is a selfish, greedy & conniving piece of whatever bad you can think of.
They're the ones walking over decent people to get what they want. Are you like that too ?

@Ludwig, Tuesday, 29 July 2014 10:09:17 PM

What you need to do is take the meaning of the whole of my post.

Do you disagree that even if they wanted to do it, it is the rare circumstance where politicians are able to promise, in the dictionary sense and that politician and commentator alike should adopt the common understanding of the political parties 'promises' as policies, which are goals for attainment and so often stretch goals?

It makes good media theatre for fools, the malicious and political opponents to use the term 'promise' as though it was intended as a binding contract not as an intent and goal.

However it is not inappropriate for critics to constructively criticise, eg where ethics are suspect.

Almost all a government can do depends on money and the fact is that the bucket of taxpayers' $$ is already committed to the social contract between government, any government, and the people.

I have fulfilled senior management roles in the past and also in consultancy - private not government. Let me assure you that even with all of his (presumed) freedom of decision, the CEO of a large company would be very reticent to make any promise because it is a complex world out there. Imagine how complicated it is for political parties who are obliged in all sorts of ways and to different constituencies even within a single electorate.

The ABC, which should know better, is just setting up another sure-fire way of making stories in the studio, as seems to be the way of 'journalism' these days. Interesting that its own Media Watch isn't criticising the suspect ethics of that, or of 'fact checking'.

Let the ABC return to news gathering. That is what we the taxpayers pay them to do. There are many opportunities for investigative journalism, for example, why wasn't Rolf Harris ever brought to heel in Australian and what other notables are doing the same?

Does anyone realize that most of these promises & the Budget changes don't come into effect until after the next election? WTF.

<< …you can't escape the fact that you're supporting a far more incompetent political party than us conservatives. >>

What are you saying Indi??

I certainly don’t support Labor. As I have said a million times on OLO; the two dinosaur parties are barely any different. They are the Liblabs! Two peas in a pod. Two parties in bed with vested-interest big-business. Two rampantly antisustainability parties!

I certainly don’t support Labor.
Ludwig,
This is one of those rare moments when it feels good to realise one has been wrong.
cheers for that

A promise tracker shouldn't just be tracking breach of promises made to the electorate. The promises that really matter are the promises made to IPA and the related businesses that fund the Coalition of the Lying.