Monday Comment: Leaders battle credibility gap

Both Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott claim to hold Christian faith and values and yet this has not helped them avoid serious issues of trust and credibility.

Tony Abbott's comments about when he could be held accountable for the truthfulness of his statements - while an attempt to be 'fair dinkum' - has actually left many people wondering just when they can believe him.

Then as news has broken of the government's advertising campaign in support of the mining tax, footage of Kevin Rudd's '100 per cent' pre-election commitment not to use taxpayer money for political advertising campaigns is being replayed. Expect to see it a hundred more times this week.

The irony is that Abbott's foot-in-mouth comments were an attempt to explain exactly what has occurred to Kevin Rudd.
In the heat of an election campaign, the Howard government's large advertising bill looked like fair game and so Mr Rudd, standing in the glare of television lights, felt certain he would never feel the need to blur the same lines.

It is a timely reminder to voters of all persuasions to base their judgements not solely on the ebb and flow of daily news headlines and commentary, but on the record of decisions, policy, parliamentary voting, legislation and implementation over the long haul.

The danger is that most of us do not have time to research these trends and are reduced to basing our judgement on the very sound bites that have shown themselves to be so unreliable. Hopefully ACV and similar sources of election news can help. PH