On Saturday there is going to be an election here in NSW, Australia. We are going to elect a new state government. Although, according to the polls, we are likely to be re-electing our old government for another four year term.

Earlier today while driving I heard our local Liberal candidate speaking on the amount of spending on public dental services. A bit of background may help here.

Under our Federal Constitution medical services are a state responsibility. But many years ago the Federal Government stepped in and provided additional funding in certain areas. Dental care was not one of them originally. A little later, however, a federal dental funding scheme was established, but this was abolished by our current Federal Liberal Government a few years ago, on the basis that it was a state matter.

The State Government does provide funding for dental services, but blames the Federal Government for not providing enough funding.

This is the great problem with a Federal system – governments can always pass the blame onto someone else – federal to state, or state to federal. Of course, any kudos is never passed on.

Back to our Liberal candidate, in what is, currently, and is likely to remain, a Labor seat. It was put to her that her Liberal colleagues in the Federal Parliament were the cause of poor dental services because they cut funding, and that is the line put out by the state Labor Government. She countered that it is a state issue and then went on to provide us with some figures.

The current Government, she claims, spends a paltry $16 per person per year on dental services, and I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of her figures. And this does sound a paltry amount. Given the cost of just a dental checkup, and the fact that dentists tell us we should get a checkup every six months, then the government is providing only a very small portion of the cost. And if you need some serious work done then $16 is only a fraction of the deposit. It sounds awful, doesn’t it?

She then went on to announce that a Liberal Government would provide $208 million over four years to improve dental services. Wow! $208 million. That is a lot of money. But…

$208 million over four years comes to $52 million each year – still a sizeable sum. But there are around 6 million people in NSW. So it amount to an extra $8.50, more or less, per person per year.

Now don’t get me wrong. That is a 50% increase and it is a lot of money. But it is the way it is presented that is deceitful. $16 per person sounds like a miserable amount to provide for dental care. Does $24.50 sound much better. If she had announced it as an increase of $8.50 then she would have been laughed at. Given the cost of dental treatment then an increase to $50 or $60 would have sounded good, but that would have cost up to $1 billion over four years, and that is really serious money, and difficult to find.

So what she said was true. But it would have been more honest having started her figures on a per person per year basis to continue doing so. And it cannot be put down to an oversight. It can’t be suggested that this was anything but deliberate. Politicians know what they are saying. They repeat the same campaign slogans over and over again. It was a deliberate attempt to make $16 sound like a pittance and $208 million sound like en enormously magnanimous gesture. In my book, that is dishonest.

I am not picking on the Liberals. Labor does similar fudging with the truth. And I am insulted by it for two reasons.

First, they treat voters with such contempt that they think being dishonest to us is OK. After all, we are just voters, they are the real players.

Secondly, they think that we are so stupid that they can get away with it. The problem, of course, is that sometimes they do get away with it. Not because we are all so stupid, but because we don’t have the time, or in some areas the knowledge, to properly scrutinise what they are saying. And that makes it even worse because then they are taking advantage of us

There is a general tendency these days – perhaps it was always so – to denigrate politicians just because they are politicians. A pox on both their houses is the common cry. I don’t despise politicians. Indeed I have a great deal of respect for many of them. I just want them to tell me the truth.