"Abbott is plainly relying on short memories, and has amplified the lie." Credit:Andrew Meares Abbott is plainly relying on short memories. And he has amplified the lie by claiming that Parliament has been in chaos for the past three years of minority government. Again not true. Yes, the Labor leadership was in turmoil but the Parliament passed a record amount of legislation under Julia Gillard, giving the nation the landmark Gonski education reforms and the national disability insurance scheme - both of which Abbott at least pretends to support. "We are facing a budget emergency." This is blatant scaremongering. Australia remains one of the few countries to score a AAA rating from the three global credit rating agencies. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is among the lowest in the developed world. Interest rates are at historic lows, inflation is in check; the economy is growing about 2.6 per cent a year. Abbott cannot admit it, but the Labor government carried us through the global financial crisis with barely a scratch, even as Europe and the United States were being hammered. But here's the killer: if there is a budget emergency to be dealt with, why is Abbott cutting taxes and launching a massive new paid parental leave scheme to cost billions? That makes no sense. And his would-be treasurer, Joe Hockey, is giving no date for a return to a budget surplus.

"Labor has lost control of Australia's borders." No it hasn't. While it's true that abandoning John Howard's so-called Pacific solution touched off a new wave of refugee boats, our borders are as impermeable as ever. The boats are invariably intercepted well before they get anywhere near our mainland shores. Asylum seekers are not storming the beaches willy-nilly. Abbott and the abominable Scott Morrison have whipped up xenophobia and racism for the most base political motives. Their latest "promise", to buy up Indonesian fishing boats, is beyond absurd. It will never happen. The Twittersphere suggested a slew of other Abbott lies, most commonly that the carbon tax would be "a wrecking ball" through the economy. But these three will do. As I have argued all along, he is unfit to be prime minister. ******* Abbott is plainly relying on short memories, and has amplified the lie.

It is a curious conceit of the Tories that they are somehow the authentic voice of Sydney's western suburbs. This boast is slavishly trumpeted by their claque of media toadies, most of whom, I suspect, would need satnav and a cut lunch to find their way anywhere further out back than Marrickville. At which point enter Jaymes Diaz, the moon-faced Liberal candidayte for the seat of Greenway, which taykes in a chunk of Blacktown and runs north to just beyond Riverstone. Diaz's calamitous interview with Channel Ten, when he was unayble to list Abbott's "six-point plan" to stop the boats, rocketed him to international fayme. The hilarity made it all the way to Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on American television. Ever since, he's been surrounded by a guard of minders shielding him from the media and the voters. An ABC reporter did manage to pop a question at him a few days ago; Diaz spluttered that he was "for families" before the goon squad hauled him away to sayfety. Apparently he is the scion of some local Tory dynasty and supported by none other than Dayvid Clarke, the NSW upper house MP who is titular head of the Liberals' lunatic right wing. The voters of Greenway, a Labor seat on a hairline margin of just 0.9 per cent, will have only themselves to blayme if they send the dolt to Canberra.

******* Roger Corbett, the Fairfax chairman, touched off a mighty stink when he gave Kevin Rudd a verbal biffing on the ABC's Lateline program on Tuesday. Here was a media mogul and Reserve Bank board member wickedly interfering in the election. And the ABC, snared in some sinister Tory plot, had neglected to explain that he was a member of the Liberal Party. A storm in a tea cup, I would have thought. You might find it hard to believe, but Corbett has no say whatsoever in what appears in the Herald or any other Fairfax outlet. Nix, zero, zilch. It just does not happen. And it would be a mighty stretch to argue that his Lateline appearance had shifted even one vote. The row masked an important point he made about the appalling - OK, the disgusting - behaviour of the News Corp newspapers in this campaign. Here's the quote: "… to be as strongly biased as News have been in the last few months, I do think does a great damage to the credibility of press, at just the time when the press needs to be highly respected as we go through this digital transition". You betcha. It matters not that the opinion pages of The Australian, The Daily Telegraph and Brisbane's Courier-Mail are a bottomless swamp of right-wing idiocy. So be it. Rupert Murdoch and his myrmidons are entitled to their own opinions.

But they are not entitled to their own facts. When you prostitute your news columns with cant, slant and bias, as News has done so relentlessly, it is a betrayal of your readers and a trampling of every ethical principle of journalism. This is not surprising from the global octopus that so disgraced itself in Britain, but it is a tragedy for Australia. smhcarlton@gmail.com Twitter: MikeCarlton01.