The 'Honourable' Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia.

We are privileged to live in Australia, in a great country, in a representative democracy, where we elect men and women to make most of the decisions about leading the country for us whilst asking us to pass judgement on them at each election. We expect those men and women to keep us informed about the decisions that they make and to act with integrity in the execution of their duties. The higher up the chain of representation that an MP progresses, the more important it is that they demonstrate honour. That is why all Australian ministers are given the style "The Honourable" and referred to accordingly. Similarly, we expect an Opposition to give us some idea of what they will do in government, whilst understanding that, as our representatives, they are entitled to make changes to those policies in response to circumstances.

Some policies will change after an election. The previous government, having promised that they would place a price on carbon via an emission tradings scheme prior to the election, found themselves in a minority government post election and in exchange for their support, the Greens required that they start pricing carbon with a tax instead. The government had said that they would not place a direct tax on carbon prior to the election. As an emissions trading scheme is a tax by another name, this was not a major violation of precedent in Australian politics. This was not a case of Paul Keating's L-A-W tax cuts, which were a major plank of his 1993 election victory, when he reneged on them afterwards, his chances of winning the 1996 election took a well deserved nosedive.

Tony Abbott's Opposition, ably supported by the mass media, made out that the policy change was a major breach of trust. He ran a lengthy campaign, pounding away at the Gillard government over the carbon tax lie. He scored enormous political capital through his repeated thrusts about trust, honesty and how he could be trusted when his opponents could not be. A short list of his oft repeated promises includes no cuts to health, no cuts to education, Gonski will be implemented, NDIS will be implemented, no cuts to SBS and the ABC. All of those promises, along with many others were resoundingly broken in this week's Budget.

It turns out that those who said that Tony Abbott was simply saying whatever he felt was necessary to win an election were absolutely right. He didn't have the fallback position of previous governments that the Budget figures were wrong, as accurate Budget figures were provided during the election campaign, which was only a few months after the previous Budget anyway. He intentionally made those promises, knowing the situation of the Budget.

The campaign was effective. He won the election. Won it convincingly. Won it because because he had lied both comprehensively and effectively. Tony Abbott is Prime Minister today because of a deliberate, systematic, intentional campaign of deception.

I was disgusted with his approach prior to the election and I am straight out appalled now. There are serious discussions that we need to be having as a society about our expenses.We have an ageing population, so healthcare and welfare costs go up while the percentage of people working to provide revenue for those costs goes down. We have housing prices that are at unprecedented levels as a percentage of median income, with more people than ever needing two income households to pay those mortgages. If the unemployment rate goes up and some day it must, quite a few of those people will end up losing their houses, if enough people lose their houses, our financial institutions that have grown fat on mortgage loans that looked safe in the good times, will also end up in trouble as it's not like they have used those fat profits to buffer them for difficult times. Will those debts also have to be paid by the taxpayer?

It has been twenty three years since we had a recession, do we think we'll never have one again? Our economy is tied to Chinese prosperity and they've blown housing and building bubbles to make ours look mild! There are storm clouds on the horizon. Every year we burn and sell more of our coal, more of our oil, sell more of our gold, more of our uranium, more of our nickel,  more of our aluminum, more of our zinc more of our diamonds and more of our other minerals! None of them can be replaced! Every time we sell some or use some, they're not available for our children and our grandchildren. Those profits for selling *our* natural resources have been lightly taxed and considerable portions of them are sent overseas, despite the fact that billions of *our* dollars has been spent on assisting these companies to mine and sell those resources. Norway has built the largest sovereign savings fund in the world with its natural resources - we're spending the fucking lot on middle and upper class welfare!  We are living high on the hog and expecting our children to pay the price.

These are critical issues that need to be discussed, they don't get discussed because there isn't enough trust within the community to tackle these issues. Our representatives are unable to trust each other and we are increasingly unable to trust them. And trust is critical to a democracy.

Mr Abbott has set a very shoddy example, the next time I have to deal with a child at school for being dishonest, which isn't exactly unheard of amongst children, what precisely should my response be when the child says "Well the Prime Minister lies on purpose all the time and he seems to be doing OK?" because I don't think that "I have higher expectations of children than I do of the elected leader of my country" is a fair response!

The next time my wife and I walk back from the car into Woolworths to point out that Cassie didn't give me the cold meat that we ordered at the cashier's so we need to pay for it, will they be even more shocked than they were the last time? Instead of half of the railway ticket sellers being surprised at my asking for a ticket for 4 year old Cassie as she still looks 3, will they all be surprised? Will all of my friends be shocked the next time I get robbed and don't make an insurance claim because I left the big window open, in blatant violation of my insurance policy?

I do these things because I believe that personal honesty and integrity matters, and I believe it matters even more when you are the Prime Minister of this country! If it's good enough for me to accept difficulties in the name of being honest, than it can be good enough for you!

Mr Abbott, if you wish to convince me that you have introduced this Budget to benefit Australians because you are so concerned about the deficit, then *you* will need to take responsibility for *your* decision to take the Prime Ministership of Australia by deceit. Barry O'Farrell resigned because he didn't recall receiving a bottle of wine yet he had received it. He had been dishonest, so he resigned. There was no memory lapse on your part, just contempt for the people that you purport to represent. We need better than that from our leaders and since you clearly can't provide it, the best thing you can do is to make way for someone who can. Only by leaving your office can you restore the honour to it that your actions have taken away from it.