Testimony technique

One of the most common techniques employed by Australian politicians is that which can be referred to as the“testimony”technique，in which politicians list a series of the achievements or deeds of individual parties.Take for example，the following claim made by Beazley：

Too few campaign launches in recent years have done what campaign launches used to do—what Ben Chiefly，and even Bob Menzies，used to do—and that is launch comprehensive，detailed plans for the nation.Today，Labor releases that plan—in 263 pages of detail—a plan for jobs，security and opportunity for all our people.

Beazley not only uses the testimony technique for his new and glorious vision for all of the Australian people，but as part of his new image for Labor，also refers to the fact that Labor had eaten humble pie on more than ten occasions.This implies that the technique can be used to declare whatever a politician wants his audience to hear about a given subject.

Howard uses a similar technique：

Labor left us...a deficit of 10.5 billion and we turned that into a surplus a year ahead of schedule...we have the lowest interest rates in 30 years...we have generated 320000 new jobs....

The only thing Beazley and Howard fail to explain is how their achievements are or were to be calculated.Beazley in no way clarifies how his plan is best for the country，while Howard neglects to enlighten the public as to how his party's impressive economic successes were calculated.（For instance，those people who are neither welfare recipients nor take part in any kind of employment are not regarded as being unemployed according to Coalition economic paradigms.）Testimonial technique can be used to construct a fair，well-balanced argument.However，more often than not it is used in ways that are unfair and misleading.