Senator Andrew Bartlett
Sunday, November 21, 2004
 
Many thoughts went through my mind hearing John Anderson complaining about the smear on his reputation and the lack of natural justice he received from Tony Windsor regarding the bribery allegations.I do have sympathy for John Anderson in such a situation. However he is a senior member of a Government which has been quite happy to be party to vilifying, misrepresenting and slurring a large number of people for political purposes, without any concern for the impact on the person or their family and very rarely apologising when proved incorrect.

I can’t recall John Anderson doing too much of this vilifying himself, but he is Deputy Prime Minister in a Government which has excelled in it. It’s a bit rich to complain loudly about a lack of natural justice and to call for an apology when this Government has specialised in denying natural justice and in not apologising. In fact this Government is so antagonistic to the concept of natural justice that it has specifically removed any entitlement to it from the Migration Act.

They are not alone in the political sphere in refusing to apologise when an egregious slur has been found to be baseless or grossly overstated, but I’d say they’re the most regular and calculated offenders. (Apart from the media of course, who use the excuse that they are just the messenger when in reality they not only contribute to a lot of the distortions but do more than anyone else to perpetuate them and regularly refuse to correct the record in anything close to a balanced way.)

I don’t think I’ll start listing this Government’s examples of vilifying and deliberately slurring people here, as it will take too long. It would also risk the misperception that those I omit are less significant than those I list. However, if people want to provide any examples, that would be welcome – there have been so many it’s hard to remember them all.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Sunday, November 21, 2004 Permalink
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