Do voters care if politicians lie?

So, we Australians don’t trust politicians. Tell us something we don’t know.

In Tasmania, two weeks ago, Premier David Bartlett released internal government polling in the wake of an Auditor-General’s investigation into whether the money spent on the reports was an improper use of taxpayer's money. The local newspaper, the Hobart Mercury, ran the front page headline “Voter Angst” and bi-line "Lack of trust a telling poll issue".

Looking at the reports (go here) they contain the type of information that politicians would find useful, but I don’t think that useful. The questions asked the respondents to rate the government's performance on delivering a range of services, and the tendency with this type of question is for people to automatically either expect more or want more. Is the government doing enough on health services? Combating crime? Education? No matter how good the government of the day is, the default response will usually be "no!"

I suspect similar surveys in other states would show the same results: the bleeding obvious. That is why focus groups (just like you see in the Hollowmen!) are used by all political parties, because you need to know how deeply the dissatisfaction (or satisfaction) is held.

Here is something that leapt out at me. The question that got one of the highest "very poorly/poorly" responses was the question that asked respondents to rate the government on accountability and trustworthiness. Clearly, we don't rate the government highly on the issue of trust, and that became the headline for the Mercury front page (although it has improved from a 74 per cent negative response under the recently departed Paul Lennon to 60 per cent negative under David Bartlett’s premiership).

But have a look (in the August report (PDF 780KB)) at the "key issues for the Tasmanian government" responses. It appears respondents were asked to say what their key issues were, and then the surveyors did a "key word" search on those responses to see what was mentioned most often. Consistently, over the two years the surveys were held, "accountability" scores at around 2-3 per cent response rate. Health, education and the environment are the big scorers, well into double figures.

The conclusion to draw is that we don't trust politicians as far as we can kick them, but we don't necessarily care that much about it. Could it be that all voters really want are working health and education services, decent roads and clean air? I'm not saying that trust and accountability aren't important, just that as an issue it may not rate as highly as many in the media, and the commentariat, think it should.

Let’s take a brief look at recent history. It is widely held that voters are becoming increasingly distrustful of and disengaged from politics and politicians in Australia. Writers such as Uhr (2007), Kelly (2007), Goot (2002) and Eccleston (1998) argue that public trust in Australia’s governments and political leadership is at an all time low. Goot (2002), for example, makes the claim that “politics, politicians and political parties have never been highly praised by the Australian public: reports of ‘widespread distrust’ go back a long way”.

The table below illustrates how Australians rank politicians against other occupations for trustworthiness. At thirty-ninth place from 40 professions, people just do not trust politicians to tell the truth. Coupled with that, journalists are scarcely considered any more trustworthy, ranked thirty-fifth: Australians trust neither the message nor the messenger.

Similar surveys over recent decades have consistently seen politicians’ trustworthiness score at rock-bottom levels. In 1998 a Newspoll found only 7 per cent of Australians thought politicians had high standards of honesty and ethics, down from a still low 19 per cent in the 1970’s, and as far back as 1955, a Morgan poll revealed 91 per cent agreed that politicians “twist the truth to suit their own arguments”.

Thus it is true that Australians do not “trust” their politicians. As Jaensch (1995) points out the “main component” of Australian political culture has long been “a combination of apathy towards politics, and a scepticism, even a cynicism, towards its institutions and political actors”. According to social advocate, Reverend Tim Costello:

Huge numbers of the electorate are now so convinced that politicians only lie that they have not just become cynical, they’ve actually lost any connection to the political process. They don’t follow it, don’t read about it. They say, “Well of course they only lie, so why should I follow it?” (in Eccleston 1998)

Costello and Jaensch point to how some people feel, but it is difficult, from the evidence, to take as jaundiced a view on the majority of the Australian voting population. My contention is that there is little direct support, despite the conventional wisdom of Costello and the other writers referred to above, for the idea that trust in politics really is any lower now than it has been in the past, or that it is a “deal-breaker” at the ballot box.

So to state the obvious - that voters do not trust politicians - is too simplistic a way at looking at perceptions of trust. Many people are disconnected from politics - true - but that does not mean they have given up on it altogether.

The graph below compiles results from three decades of Australian Election Study surveys (McAllister and Clark 2008). It illustrates that voters have, in fact, become more satisfied with democracy in the past 30 years, not less. How can this be reconciled with a notion that voters are trusting their politicians less?

In addition, in regard to the question of trust in government, the AES paints a much brighter picture than much opinion polling, as the graph below shows. Trust in “people in government” (not quite the same thing as “politicians,” granted) scores at around the 40 per cent mark - not quite at rock-bottom levels.

Australian voters are clearly cynical of politics and distrustful of politicians; yet despite their elected members, probably not because of them, voters have a largely positive view of their democracy and the value of their vote. They like things the way they are. It is evident, therefore, that “trust” has different properties and functions in different contexts: voters differentiate between, on one hand, an expectation that politicians will treat the truth expediently with, on the other, an expectation that politicians will deliver services

My view is that voters impose a different kind of morality - different from that which they apply in their personal and family relationships - on politicians because they accept that the stock-in-trade of a successful politician is to lie, or at least avoid the truth, much of the time. Voters do not insist that politicians tell the truth on every detail; rather politicians are judged on their ability to keep promises, or fix problems.

It is not the truth that matters, therefore, it is something else. What voters really want are politicians who are believable and can deliver on promises - those with a vision of where they are going and what they want to achieve: the conviction politician.

Politicians are meant to be different. Those who change their policies to suit the public mood look unprincipled. The most admired politicians stick to their guns, the way Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher did. "Conviction politician" is a compliment. Those who adjust their policies to suit the prevailing wind are derided as "flip-floppers". (Skapinker 2008)

Uhr (2007) similarly identifies that it is not necessarily “truthfulness” that is the most important political trait; rather, as he calls it, the “terms of trust” analogous with notions of legitimacy, confidence, respect, credibility and conviction:

… citizens are prepared to trust those governments whose leading representatives have demonstrated their reliability and so have won their confidence - which literally means “faith”, particularly faith in the reliability of representatives to do what the community requires. (Uhr 2007)

The conclusion is that the "conviction politician" is a politician whom the public respects (Kelly 2003(b); Shanahan 2002). But attempting to ascertain why some politicians are perceived so, and why others are not, is difficult to establish with certainty. For example, John Howard was consistently described in the terms of a conviction politician but so were state Labor leaders Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr. Beattie and Bracks were completely different in personality and leadership style from Howard; and Carr a different personality again, so it is difficult to conclude that conviction politics can be identified in terms of behavioural traits.

Conviction, for all its reported benefits and attributes, nevertheless remains a nebulous concept, difficult to describe and difficult to ascribe. Some don’t believe in it at all, just an “empty accolade showered by excitable commentators” according to Peter Brent.

But I’m not so sure. My suspicion is that voters prefer ends over means when it comes to politics. They will not go on voting for a corrupt or incompetent government but are not too fussed about “the truth” providing the job gets done. They expect their politicians to lie and are much less surprised than the commentators when it inevitably happens.