AS Australia's Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott is hardly the epitomy of honesty, points out Laurie Oakes.

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LET'S not beat about the bush. To my mind, Tony Abbott tells lies.

So what? Is there anything surprising about that? After all, he's a politician.

But it needs to be pointed out because the central message from Abbott supporters is that the Prime Minister is the liar - Ju-liar, in fact, according to the likes of Alan Jones.

The Opposition Leader is portrayed - and portrays himself - as the epitomy of honesty. A man whose word can always be trusted.

Mr Abbott's lieutenants were even pleased when he was tossed out of Parliament on Monday because it got his offending comment - accusing Julia Gillard of lying - into the headlines.

Mr Abbott's own truthfulness came under the microscope, however, after a blundering performance in an interview on ABC TV's 7.30 program on Wednesday evening.

Earlier that day he had claimed BHP's decision to put the Olympic Dam mining project in South Australia on hold was partly due to the Federal Government's carbon and mining taxes.

That was porkie No. 1. BHP CEO Marius Kloppers had blamed such factors as the Eurozone financial crisis, the slowdown of growth in China and weakness in commodity markets.

He had not mentioned the mining tax or carbon price in his statement explaining the decision to the Stock Exchange.

In fact, Mr Kloppers told journalists: "The tax environment for this particular project has not changed at all since we started working on it six or seven years ago".

The mining tax, he explained, only covered coal and iron ore - not copper, gold and uranium, which Olympic Dam would produce.

When Mr Abbott stuck to his claim despite what Mr Kloppers had said, interviewer Leigh Sales asked: "Have you actually read BHP's statements?"

Mr Abbott replied: "No".

That extraordinary admission led to widespread criticism of the Opposition Leader, so next day he claimed he had read the BHP announcement after all - soon after it was made.

He attributed the damaging answer in the 7.30 interview to a misunderstanding of what Sales had asked him.

But Sales's meaning could hardly have been clearer. Just in case there was any doubt, she had gone on to say in her next question: "You haven't read their statements today but you're commenting about what they've announced."

To me the conclusion is inescapable: that, in trying to explain away a dreadful gaffe, Mr Abbott resorted to another falsehood.

Ms Gillard will never live down her broken "no carbon tax" election promise, and nor should she. And there are plenty of other examples of her being economical with the truth.

Is Mr Abbott, though, any better? He has made a string of false claims about the impact of the carbon tax, in particular - the bodgie Olympic Dam allegation being just the latest.

As I see it the Opposition Leader has largely got away with being shamelessly loose with the truth, if only because attention has been focused on his opponent, but perhaps now it is starting to catch up with him.

Ms Gillard had her problems this week, too - most notably in her handling of allegations about the circumstances surrounding her departure from the law firm Slater and Gordon 17 years ago before she went into politics.

But, in a marathon news conference on Thursday, she answered every question on the matter that members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery could throw at her.

It was a strong and competent performance, in stark contrast to Mr Abbott's embarrassing television appearance the night before.

A few more weeks like this would certainly worry the Coalition.

Mr Abbott's most serious error came at an education forum, after he'd accused Ms Gillard - despite her denials - of having a hit list of private schools that would lose funding under a proposed Government blueprint.

He pointed out that more state and federal funding goes to public school pupils than to those in the private education sector and said: "There is no question of injustice to public schools here. If anything, the injustice is the other way."

In case anyone missed it, the Opposition Leader repeated the line about private schools possibly suffering an injustice. He had left himself wide open.

But he squealed with outrage when Ms Gillard used the comment to accuse him of believing public schools got too much money and should have their funding trimmed.

Significantly the Education Minister in the NSW Liberal Government, Adrian Piccoli, immediately responded that "most of the proposed funding increases should be directed to public sector schools because most disadvantaged students are concentrated in this sector".

That was quite a whack at the federal Liberal leader from his own side.

Mr Abbott's bad week continued with his response to the PM's press conference on the Slater and Gordon issue and her role in setting up a slush fund for her then boyfriend, an AWU official.

Mr Abbott had claimed for days that this was an important matter and Ms Gillard had questions to answer.

Then he had to admit yesterday morning he had not bothered to watch the news conference right through nor even to read the transcript.

Being less than obsessive in his approach to the truth is not Mr Abbott's only shortcoming.

His strength is the sweeping statement and going for the political jugular - not getting into the detail of issues and doing the hard yards.

Laurie Oakes is political editor for the Nine Network. His column appears every Saturday in The Advertiser.

Originally published as Oakes: Just whose pants are on fire?