J-scribe

Surprise, surprise...John Howard told Australia he was “sorry” for rising interest rates this week but took back the apology almost immediately. The Prime Minister, who’s heading to election-day as the nag bringing up the rear, back-tracked almost immediately upon uttering the 'S' word, insisting he wasn't actually apologizing. Sound familiar Aboriginal Australia?

Yes, the man who’s still asking the electorate “who do you trust?” after promising last election that interest rates would always stay low under a Coalition government (despite the fact that the 90 day cash rate hit a record high of 21% when Howard himself was Treasurer in the early 80’s!) is now sorry he said sorry when official interest rates rose this week for the 10th time since 2001, to 6.25%.

It was the first time the Reserve bank had ever moved on official interest rates in a Federal election and the hurt will be felt acutely in marginal seats full of ‘Howard Battlers’ who can no longer afford the repayments on their massive mortgages acquired in the booming economic conditions for which Howard claims credit. His first reaction to the news was to say "sorry" to voters. But within hours he was explaining that he was only "sorry" in the sense that he felt bad for people who would suffer as a result of the interest rate rise but not "sorry" in the sense that he was apologising on behalf of his government for failing to keep interest rates low as promised. So, he wants kudos for economic boom-times but won’t apologize for the rising interest rates caused by said unchecked booming.

So, who do you trust? Not a man who plays such legalistic word games, surely. And surely not the sort of man who’d apologize one minute and retract it the next in a fit of spin-related re-programming. He could give a pernicious QC a run for his money with the semantic games he plays. Although he told reporters he didn’t want another argument about the definition of the word sorry – insensitively referring to the debate over a national apology to Aboriginal Australia he refuses to utter, saying “Haven’t we been here before on another issue”. Yes, Mr Howard, we have and your track record on apologies proves you’re disingenuous and untrustworthy.

This whole debate reminds me of that other long-forgotten pattern of deceit he practiced in his first term in office way back in 1996. Do you remember his explanation for broken election promises? It went like this “There were core promises and non-core promises…we can break the non-core ones”. I remember at the time using the analogy of parents employing such an approach when trying to inspire honesty and integrity in their children. “If you promise Daddy you’ll eat all your veggies but then refuse, you’ll be breaking a core promise but if you promise Mummy you’ll brush your teeth before bed and then go to sleep without doing so, you haven’t really deceived her because that wasn’t a core promise.” What twisted logic!

Not quite as twisted, though, as teaching your children that you don’t have to apologize for your mistakes or take responsibility for them. Not as bad, either, as teaching them to pretend to say sorry if it wins you points with people you need to exploit for personal or professional gain or that it’s OK to take an apology back as soon as you’ve issued one: “I didn’t really mean it!”. It’s the stuff of juvenile playground conflict.

Grow up Mr Howard and grow a conscience! Sorry, shouldn’t have said that. ;)

Postscript: For a satirical take on this story see Nicholson's witty animation "Sorry"    [read more]