Why would anyone ever believe them again?

Even allowing for the normal way that parties, once they achieve government, will let some promises drop and reverse some others, it really is extraordinary the number of broken promises or reversals of position this Abbott government is making.  Why would the public ever believe anything anyone in this government says about their future intentions again?

The latest example of bold faced, direct reversals (and one with really no attempted justification at all) comes via Julie Bishop:

The Abbott government has denied international pressure forced its decision to commit $200 million to a global climate fund it had previously said it could not support....

The foreign minister also responded to criticism that the funds should not be drawn from Australia's existing foreign aid budget.

"This is our neighbourhood, this is where we are already using our aid program to assist developing countries in the Pacific," she said.

"This is money from the aid budget that would have otherwise been allocated to the Pacific for climate mitigation and climate related action to work against the impact of climate change."

In an interview with the ABC in 2012 while in opposition, Ms Bishop said climate change funding should not be "disguised as foreign aid funding".

"We would certainly not spend our foreign aid budget on climate change programs," she said at the time.