Hansard and the Minister for Truth

I've spoken before about the infelicities of Hansard, but it's only today - when seeking out a little gem reported on by Dennis Shanahan of The Australian - that I realised how deeply deficient it really is. I've not compared the Hansard side by side with the TV broadcasts of parliament until now, but the difference is quite startling.

Apart from anything, I wasn't able to find any trace of the incident to which Shanahan referred - though it definitely occurred, because Julia Gillard referred to it herself later on:.

I would like to start with an observation about the member for Wentworth, because we know that the Minister for Health and Ageing made a very big gaffe today. He referred to the member for Wentworth as the Treasurer. Do you know what a gaffe is for a politician like the Minister for Health? I will tell you: it is when he accidentally tells the truth. So there was one truth told by the Howard government in the parliament this week.

Let me just pause for a second and say: HAAAAhhhhahhaHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhaaaa!!!!!!!!!

Now that that's finished, let me secondly say how much I would have loved to see Peter Costello's face, and thirdly complain that I had to fix a spelling mistake in the above Hansard excerpt. I thought the ABC's transcripts were getting bad ...

To give you some idea of exactly how much Hansard differs from real life, I've taken the liberty of directly transcribing the famous Tony Abbott kiss incident I wrote about earlier this week (to save space, I've popped it in the Comments) - head to Page 84 of Hansard to compare this with the `official' version. While the version currently on the website is just the first issue proof, it's quite astounding how many ommissions there are - and ommissions that make a) The government appear less argumentative and b) The Speaker more authoritative; something he clearly isn't.

Read on ...