As disgraced former US president Richard Nixon learned, in politics, lying gets you nowhere. But that was the 1970s in America, and Watergate is history.
After this week’s federal budget, Australians are entitled to wonder whether lying, once seen in our political culture as political suicide, is becoming entrenched as just another lever in an already grubby political toolbox.
On Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers reneged on explicit promises made ahead of the 2025 election not to reduce capital gains discounts on property transactions or change negative gearing arrangements.
Likewise, in 2024, he reworked the previous government’s stage three tax cuts, despite having explicitly promised during the 2022 election campaign to leave them untouched.
