It's be kind to ethically-challenged politicians week, with exceptions

I do try to be as tolerant as possible with that class of persons known as politicians and with behaviour which illustrates that many are ethically challenged.

However, some like Deputy-Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Treasurer, Hon. Julie Bishop M.P., make it so hard to remain even nominally balanced in outlook.

It boggles the mind that someone who would have once acted as an officer of the Court should so consistently and knowingly misrepresent the facts.

This was Ms. Bishop last Thursday according to Hansard:

The Treasurer has not resiled from that. The Prime

Minister took 10 minutes to answer a question and not

once did he say that this tax was not compulsory, nor

did he say that it would not apply from 2.23 pm yesterday.

So the Australian public must assume that they

will be subject to this new tax on their deposits. They

were told that the guarantee was going to be free of

charge; they now find that their savings will be subject

to a new tax. I ask the Prime Minister: does this mean

that the savings of ordinary Australians will now be

diluted by the fact that they must pay this tax?

(Time expired)

Now Ms. Bishop would be well aware that the only event that occurred at 2.23pm on Wednesday 22 October 2008 was that she asked a short question of the Federal Treasurer to which he gave an even shorter reply.

Ms JULIE BISHOP (2.23 pm)—My question is to

the Treasurer. Treasurer, in the interests of giving depositors

and banks clear information on the proposal

being canvassed by the government to now charge a

fee for guaranteeing deposits over $1 million, I ask:

will this fee be compulsory? Will a depositor with, say,

the Commonwealth Bank, who has no concern about

the safety of their deposit, be obliged to pay the fee, or

will a bank that does not wish to have its deposits over

$1 million guaranteed by the government be obliged to

pay this fee?

Mr SWAN—The very simple answer is that the fee

will be paid by all depositors in the deposit-taking institutions

that are regulated by APRA, and the fee will

be paid either by the depositor or by the bank.

So-called taxes (or for that matter new fees and charges) are not brought into legal being on such a basis and her feigned indignation is so patently false that one has to wonder if this statement was not also an attempt to support Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull's efforts to spook retirees and other small time investors and, encourage a further run on financial institutions holding managed funds.

As for the "fee" - I'm sure that I am not the only one who remembers that fees was mentioned from the start in a prime ministerial media release on 12 October 2008.