To the person responsible for this grotesque and unAustralian act, I say "you are a murderer".

This young girl must now go through life wondering if it could happen again to another horse - as we are all now wondering.

Good luck to the police in finding this miserable person and good luck to the prosecution in jailing the criminal who murdered this beautiful horse.

I HAVE heard it said frequently that "if you cannot lie convincingly then you cannot become a successful politician".

From an academic point of view, a lie is only a lie when it is proved to be a falsehood.

The complaint that Labor has lied over the Medicare issue, made before the election, could only be proved as such after the election.

We have to admit that no one could know the Prime Minister's true intentions in this regard before the election.

As some of Shakespeare's quotations suggest, people who protest a denial too strongly are hiding a falsehood.

That is how the Prime Minister came across to many people.

Several similar situations have occurred in the past: a statement before an election turns out to be a downright lie after the election.

It is therefore impossible to know or to be able to verify the true intentions of the Prime Minister, who is, let’s face it, a very powerful figure in determining government policy after the election. 

On the question of misleading the voting public (lying), the same can be said of the Australian Electoral Commission, which resolutely and definitively stated that to have a formal vote counted on the Senate ballot paper, then six boxes above the line would have to be numbered serially one to six. Otherwise, the vote would be counted as informal.

Various reputable sources, media included, dispelled this claim, asserting emphatically that if only one box was numbered then the vote would still be formal.

The AEC’s insistence was also evident at the polling booth. The clerk, when issuing the papers, gave the same official spiel: that six boxes must be numbered.

It is true that in normal life, false business marketing claims can be tested in court.

Nevertheless, we hear consistently, for instance, that a product kills 99.9 per cent of germs - a quite spurious, unsubstantiated and persistent claim.

Is it any wonder we lose faith in politics and the law?

THESE days, there’s a test for almost every health threat imaginable: mammograms; blood pressure checks; even bowel cancer screening kits you can mail in for testing.

But there’s one test you won’t read about in a doctor’s waiting room, and it could save your life.

Loose-fill asbestos testing is being offered by the State Government for free until August 1 across more than 60 local government areas, in a bid to eradicate the threat from NSW homes.

I deal with the effects of asbestos-related disease every day in my job – it is a killer that only shows symptoms after it’s too late.

Taking up the government’s free loose-fill asbestos testing offer will save you more than $1000, but could also potentially save you and your family’s lives.

Register before it’s too late: www.loosefillasbestos.nsw.gov.au or call 13 77 88.