It seems that there is a difference between lying and not telling the truth, until you're caught out.
Recently former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld was sentenced to jail for telling lies. All in an attempt to avoid a $77.000 traffic fine. Not too much later the government dismissed Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon's failure to disclose trips to China as a "lapse in judgement".
Now, I'm not an expert but it seems bizarre to me that we would sentence any person to jail for lying. Given the costs of incarceration and the apparent over population of jails - I am sure there has to be a better way of publicly shaming and punishing a person for lying. Or is Einfeld being punished so harshly because he is supposed to be a man of truth, a man we respect both for that which he has achieved and for the office that he held.
On the other hand a sitting government minister (a man elected to represent the public) speaks in parliament and acts contrary to accepted and published rules of behaviour and he is excused, his is just a 'lapse in judgement'!
Public figures: church leaders, government ministers and judges should be held to a high standard. We should be able to rely on them to tell the truth. But maybe we should hold them all to the same standard. There should be no parliamentary privilege, or governmental grace, that excuses a 'lapse in judgement'.
The same standard by which Einfeld was judged for a $77.00 lie should be used to examine Fitzgibbon's (perhaps) $ 10,000.00 lie.
Any person that seeks a position of power; any person that represents others, should be held to the highest of ethical standards. No person who seeks to be a leader should be excused for a deliberate, self-protectionist, lapse of judgement: a lie. I join Prime Minister Rudd in his understatement, I "expect better'.
Let's be honest Fitzgibbon's (and Einfeld's) main problem was that he got caught. It's just as well we can expect better of all our other politicians, church leaders and judges otherwise our jails might be a little more crowded and our parliaments, churches and courts a bit emptier!
