Comments on: Have politicians become more ethical and honest?

By: Pete from Perth

Pete from Perth — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:01:57 +0000

Andrew, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a huge number of Google hits: he was and did, constantly

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:23:22 +0000

Pete - Perhaps a meme in your case. Google ‘Howard tricky’ or ‘Howard lies’ and you will see what I mean.

By: Pete from Perth

Pete from Perth — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 07:08:53 +0000

What ‘campaign’ by who, Andrew? I’ve never been a member of any political party. I’m simply a member of the public who reads the news and can remember the past.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 00:03:25 +0000

Russell - Fair point for recent WA history, but it hardly explains Howard’s positive rating. The campaign against his integrity was significant and still going in comments 1 and 4 here, but still he gets a much higher personal rating than federal MPs in general. And I can think of only a handful of instances in the last ten years of proven wrong-doing by federal MPs.

By: Pete from Perth

Pete from Perth — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:09:33 +0000

It’s still early days yet, but, Rudd’s lot seem to be doing their best to remain accountable and open at this stage.

It’s a pleasant breath of fresh air, considering the Howard government fell straight into the gutter within a few months, with the much vaunted Code of Ministerial Conduct in tatters, and they never managed to get out. We even had Howard transparently helping his brother Stan out of his financial liabilities using public funds at one stage. The corruption was so brazen back then.

I guess the real verdict on the Howard era’s been how quickly it’s become seen as distant history, little more than a few short months after the event :).

By: Russell

Russell — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:20:18 +0000

“The low ratings of politicians in general (state MPs are on 20%) and public servants (29%) are also inconsistent with the desire of so many Australians that the government meet their needs and fix their problems.”
.

Not sure what you mean by that Andrew. Wouldn’t it be the other way around? The newspapers are filled, every day, with scandals of incompetence (child protection, indigenous affairs, housing …) and a minister or senior bureaucrat (whom no one could name a month later) fronts the cameras and tries to avoid the blame. Whereas the Premier announces all the good things (Gallop was called “Good News Geoff”) and stays away from the mess. Hence, when asked, people have a generally bad view of “pollies”, but not quite such a bad view of the leaders’. It isn’t the party leaders who have been shredded at our WA Corruption & Crime Commission.

By: Fred Argy

Fred Argy — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 07:11:47 +0000

Andrew, you note the distinction between ‘ethics and honesty’and competence. The Rudd Government may be getting high honesty marks for sticking zealously to its promises but some of them - on middle class welfare and on the size of the fiscal surplus - badly need reviewing. Competence will suffer if they don’t.

By: Slim

Slim — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:48:35 +0000

A change of Federal Government might have something to do with the improvement in perceptions of political ethics and honesty.

Let’s face it - nearly 12 years of ‘honest’ John Howard, WMD, Oil for Wheat, Children Overboard - it can only go up from there.