The nature of truth and honesty and their roles in daily life is a topic of awesome breadth and depth. And the consideration of truth and honesty, specifically in the conduct of our national affairs, is a fascinating exercise in which naivety and reality contend.
In an attempt to eat the elephant one mouthful at a time—and given my own limited experiences—I’ve chosen to consider truth and honesty in the arena of public life, specifically, the conduct of our national affairs. I make my remarks from the perspective of one who, for good or ill, supervised all the communications that emanated from the political party that held the balance of power in the Australian parliament from 1998 until 2001.
The topic of truth and honesty is of tremendous importance but, I regret to observe, of seemingly little consequence to an increasing number of Australians, certainly if the results of the 2004 federal election are anything to go by.
I shall argue that truth and honesty in public life require a great deal of those who live public lives, those who report on them and those of us who sit back reading, watching and listening. Certainly, honesty in public life is as much the responsibility of the public as it is the responsibility of our elected leaders.
Further I shall argue that if we, as members of the electorate at large, are to expect truth and honesty in the conduct of our national affairs, we have a responsibility to face up to the truth, whatever it is, with courage and maturity.
In preparing my remarks I consulted the dictionary, and the various definitions of ‘truth’ were instructive. There was the predictable stuff about truth ‘conforming to reality or actuality’; as ‘a fact that has been verified’; as ‘being a true statement’. However, I suspect, to the eternal gratitude of politicians, spin doctors and journalists everywhere, truth is also exemplified in several reputable dictionaries as ‘having the quality of nearness to or close correspondence with reality or actuality’. Cutting to the chase, according to these reputable dictionaries, truth is not absolute and ‘near enough is good enough’.
Nor, upon reflection, does truth appear to be objective. What is true for one might well not be true for another in that one person’s truth, as derived from a set of facts and/or events, might well, and quite reasonably, differ from another’s. This scenario, I’m sure, is