The Guardian 14 November, 2007
Editorial
The art of saying "sorry" and selling "spin"
Last week my canary died and the Prime Minister wrote a passionate letter of commiseration saying how sorry he was — well, there’s an election. I was touched and thanked him for his charming concern. Then, this week Howard was being driven down my street and his car ran over my dog and killed the pooch and again the PM sent a letter saying how sorry he was. He hastened to add that by saying that he was sorry did not mean that he was offering an apology or taking any responsibility. After all, it wasn’t his doing because the car is "independent" and he cannot tell the car what to do.
In the next paragraph his letter added that the fact he was able to drive down a beautifully paved road in a shiny limousine showed that the economy was in excellent shape and that this was due to the fact that he and Peter Costello (the smartest team of economists the world has ever seen) were in charge.
Readers will see in this rather crude analogy some of the semantic gyrations of the Prime Minister over the increase in interest rates last week.
When criticised over the interest rate rises a preferred option for Howard and Costello is to say that the Reserve Bank is independent and that the rise has nothing to do with the government’s economic policies. It’s the fault of petrol prices, the rise in the exchange rate of the dollar and other factors over which the government claims it has no control.
But what about the succession of tax cuts which have poured billions into the economy? They might win a few votes but by injecting billions of dollars into the economy they provide the opportunity for all the commercial operators and shopkeepers to put up prices. If similar amounts were being won by workers in wage increases there would be screams of condemnation that they were inflationary and would create unemployment. But because the tax cuts are desperate measures to win an election we are supposed to overlook their inflationary effect.
Of course, saying "sorry" or even making an apology does not extend to the Indigenous people in relation to the Stolen Generations. Howard was not around at the time so it was not his responsibility. So why should he say "sorry". More to the point is that they have dark skin and their votes do not count for much in an election anyway.
Nor does Howard’s newly found ability to say "sorry", on some occasions, extend to the lies told directly by the PM over the "children overboard affair" or to those refugees who attempted to reach Australia’s shores and were left to drown by Australian authorities. Then there are those Burmese (Myanmar) refugees who have been imprisoned on Nauru for the last year. They are safely out of sight on Nauru, and denied access to their international rights and Australia’s legal system.
There is a whole lexicon of spin that Howard has built up to hide the truth and churn out the lies in the hope of saving the government’s bacon. There are promises that can be torn up simply by saying they were "non-core promises". There is the calling of things by their opposite (WorkChoices, Fair Pay Commission, etc). There was the TV ad that was withdrawn after only two showings and was then claimed not to be relevant because it had only been shown twice.
Now there is another one. We are now supposed to be informed by an "aggregate impression". Take one statement that says one thing and another which says something else, mix them up and take the "aggregate" meaning whatever that may be.
There is the practice of selective references such as on interest rates when there is never any reference or admission by Howard on the level of interest rates and unemployment when he was Treasurer in the Fraser government and when both interest rates and unemployment were higher than at the time of the preceding Whitlam Labor Government.
This is the depth to which Howard has sunk and which passes for being a "clever" politician. However, it is looking likely that being selectively "sorry" and all the "spin" will not save the government on this occasion.