Stung by the Government’s incessant repetition of its claim that Tony Abbott removed — indeed, “gouged” — a billion dollars from hospitals funding during his time as Health Minister, the Opposition put together a graph last week showing increases in hospital funding under the Howard Government, which MPs took to waving around in question time and which went up on the Liberal website.
The graph’s a nice bit of work, with the y-axis shortened so that what was simple annual indexation of funding is made to look like impressive increases, but the final year included a healthy whack of Rudd Government funding, which the Government quickly cottoned onto.
After media reports about it this morning, the relevant page vanished from the Liberal site, taking the site’s “News” page with it but leaving the front page of the site intact. This was supposedly because the site required “maintenance”. When the site reappeared not long before ten o’clock, there was no evidence of any maintenance — the same graph reappeared:
Then, 30 minutes later, another version of the graph went up:
This one had a title change and was carefully annotated to admit that, yes, um, the previous graph wasn’t quite right. When you’re complaining about someone’s lies, it pays to make sure your own facts are in order first.
The graph is still a lie, with the y axis starting at more than 50% of the maximum figure
During my studies in Economics we were taught that foreshortened y-axis graphs like this are referred to as “gee whiz graphs”. We were also taught that, if we insisted on using this technique, we should show a break in the y-axis, clearly marked, to show that it does not start at zero. It was also pointed out that, should we ever be tempted to use this technique to highlight ripples on the top of a big number, maybe the ripples were not that important anyway.
I can not seriously trust anything that comes from the Liberal party. They have absolutely no credibility. (And Labor is only marginally better. ) Buggers aren’t they. They treat us like fools and expect us to swallow their rubbish.
Kevin Rudd, master of doublespeak. How could anyone believe a word that man says. He’s the consummate bureaucrat, paper shuffler, cocktail party diplomat. All talk, no action. Always the same old, same old. It’s painful listening to him drone on.
But Babs, this was about Abbott and the liberal party, or does it apply to him as well, in your opinion?