If the interpretation of an image is later revealed false, who is held accountable?

Interpreting mistruth in an image: Angus Taylor’s Picton bypass election promise, Part 3

Digital artefact, BCM110

Photo credit: Infrastructure Magazine

Remember when the Liberal Party promised to enact a federal integrity commission during their 2019 election campaign? And remember how their term in government just ended and we don’t have a federal integrity commission… things like this come to mind when I respond to Angus Taylor’s political media. “Prime Minister Scott Morrison has abandoned his 2019 election promise to establish a federal integrity commission,” (Visenten L, 2022). A political party which has announced so many empty promises over the years has created distrust, and when you can get away with distrust and still succeed with no consequences, frustration arises.

Do I believe Angus Taylor is really going to deliver the Picton bypass? Not really… because even if it did happen, it wouldn’t be his to take credit for. While Taylor may have won his seat of Hume again, he now serves it for the first time as a member of the opposition, because Labor won the majority of seats. This will likely be a challenge for Taylor as he may not get what he wants as easily as he was used to when the Liberal National Party were in power. Taylor announced an allocation of funds towards planning for a possible bypass in April 2022, an obviously desperate and last-minute toss of money for some votes. He didn’t have much to say about it in 2020 or 2021, believe me I tried to find it throughout my research. The NSW state government says that the Picton bypass is being planned and carefully considered, but if work on the project ramped up tomorrow, it would still be roughly nine years before you or I could drive on the bypass. That’s enough time for three more federal elections, so which politicians will be in power at that time is anybody’s guess.

Photo credit: The Daily Telegraph

It’s worth mentioning that Angus Taylor was also the Liberal Party’s Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, and with Australia’s famously horrid attitude in recent years towards climate change targets and its emissions, I’ll let you do the Maths on whether this is a political figure you’d respect and trust. Taylor has been misleading with regards to meeting certain emissions targets. “Over time, as emissions under the Coalition have steadily risen, the gap between actual emissions and the target has gradually narrowed.” (- Gordon J, 2019).

To wrap up, I ultimately believe that this piece of media from Angus Taylor’s team is modern political propaganda. Angus Taylor is not and cannot, in any circumstance, be solely responsible for the Picton bypass which will someday exist. Building roads is mainly a state government issue, not a federal one, and it is impossible that Taylor will be able to deliver the bypass in the next term of government which will conclude in 2025. The representation and interpretation of this image is important as it involves a politician indulging in his competitive campaign by simply slapping a half-true promise on some posters and calling it a day - Angus Taylor did not attend any of the physical debates which occurred this election in the Hume community. An audience member of these posters may respond to the semiotics and believe that if they vote for Taylor, a Picton bypass will soon come to be. When taking a deeper dive into the matter, one can understand that this is not the case.

REFERENCES:

Barns, Greg. (2005.) ‘Selling the Australian Government : Politics and Propaganda from Whitlam to Howard. UNSW Press. Accessed Via: https://uow.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/61UOW_INST/ihdge1/alma99100191615970666 6

Connolly, S. (2020.) ‘The regulation of pork barrelling in Australia’, Australasian Parliamentary Review. Australasian Study of Parliament Group, 35(1), pp. 24–53. Accessed via: https://search-informit-org.ezproxy.uow.edu.au/doi/10.3316/agispt.20210119042401.

Gordon, J (2019.) ‘Why the Coalition is misleading on meeting Australia's Kyoto 2020 carbon emissions target’, ABC News, RMIT Check. Accessed Via: https://apo.org.au/node/305300

Visenten, L. (2022.) Morrison walks away from integrity commission promise without Labor support. The Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-walks-away-from-integrity-commission-promise-without-labor-support-20220414-p5adgd.html