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Even then, sure of victory, Abbott stayed a resolutely small target. He refused to put candour before caution. He refused to risk telling voters the truth, even though his own remorseless campaign against Julia Gillard’s “lie” on the carbon tax proved beyond doubt that honesty was essential for successful reform, and trust for successful leadership.

He insisted Labor’s claims that the Coalition would “cut to the bone” were “bare-faced lies”, unwilling to admit his promises of continued spending were incompatible with his promise to return to surplus and solve the “budget emergency” and the “debt and deficit disaster”.

“In the last week of the campaign, Labor will say anything to sway your vote including the most bare-faced lies about the Coalition … There are no cuts to health. No cuts to education. Pensions don’t change. The GST doesn’t change.”

“... My aim is to lead a no-surprises, no-excuses government that says what it means and does what it says.”

But of course the electorate was in for a lot of surprises and the government would make a mountain of excuses. Health and education payments to the states were cut by $80bn. Pensions were changed. All the reassuring words of the campaign gave way to a budget that hit the poor hardest. It included new taxes and unsettling new ideas, never mentioned pre-election, such as denying unemployment benefits to many under-30s for six months of the year.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/04/-sp-tony-abbott-one-year-on-how-trust-won-and-lost

With the Abbott Government celebrating the anniversary of its election victory, Alan Austin offers a frank appraisal of his time in charge.

REPORTS ON THE Abbott Government’s first year are rolling out. Overwhelmingly they are negative. Only Rupert Murdoch’s paid liars and Michelle Grattan have a kind word, it seems.

Most reports are catalogues of failures: broken promises, outright lies, excruciating gaffes, internal policy disputes, damaged relationswith regional neighbours, inability to frame a fair budget, shifting wealth and income from the poor to the rich, climate vandalism, posturing in distant conflicts and inept attempts at jingoistic nationalism.

Few, if any, of the upbeat outcomes supporters of this hapless regime have tried to find are positives in any real sense.

Stopping the boats and ending deaths at sea are successes, some claim. But is there real evidence of this? With the connivance of the mainstream media, the Government has certainly stopped news of the boats and has ended reports of drownings. But that is not the same.

Until restrictions on independent observers visiting the key venues are lifted and ministers again answer questions honestly, the Government’s claims cannot be believed.

Some have hailed Abbott’s diplomatic ‘victories’ abroad. True, these generate positive press at home. But overseas?

Unfortunately for Australia, Abbott is now the leader with the worst record of negative headlines worldwide since Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya.

More than 35 issues in the last year have generated news stories abroad ridiculing Abbott and Australia. Examples include:

• ‘Australian leader appoints lone woman to Cabinet’
• ‘Australia gaffes explode into Indonesian diplomatic crisis’
• ‘Is Australia run by anti-science climate change deniers?’
• ‘Abbott says sorry to Najib’
• ‘Move to reintroduce knights, dames to honours list ridiculed’
• ‘Abbott’s refugee plan crazy’
• ‘Budget backlash as Aussie Govt support plunges’
• ‘Australian PM ribbed over 'cringe-worthy' Abe photo’
• ‘Australia falls short on Aboriginal welfare targets’

And that’s just in Malaysia.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/australia-after-one-year-of-abbott-how-did-it-come-to-this,6865

What does the euphemism "a stronger economy" means in the babble-traps of the Liberals (CONservatives)?... Simply it means more profits for business and less wages for the workers. It always has been this way. And the hit on superannuation by the forces of liberal darkness confirm this, by at then of a wrong premise ends up with the euphemism "a stronger economy"... Bollocks. The only thing it means is a greater disparity of income between rich and poor.

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Education Minister Christopher Pyne said on Adelaide radio the day after the Coalition's changes were announced that the employer savings would be passed on to workers in full.

"What this will mean is the superannuation contribution will stay at 9.5 per cent in the foreseeable future, and the extra that would have gone up to 12 per cent will stay in their pay packets every week," Mr Pyne said.

"They can make the decision about whether they invest in their mortgage or whether they invest it in superannuation or whether they spend it on living expenses now and I think that’s a much better outcome."

The same day, during an ABC RN interview, Treasurer Joe Hockey contradicted Mr Pyne. Asked by host Fran Kelly to guarantee that the money saved from freezing super would go back into workers pockets in equal amounts to the slated super increase, Mr Hockey said: "That's a negotiation between employers and employees."

When pressed, he acknowledged that the money might not go to workers at all.

"Either it comes into workers' pockets or it goes into superannuation, it's one or the other," he said.

"Or it stays with the employer," Kelly said.

"If it stays with employers, the best way to grow superannuation in Australia is to have a stronger economy," he said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-12/tony-abbott-incorrect-on-impact-of-superannuation-changes/5715698

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See how a con trick is done? The ABC fact-check of course calls Tony Abbott as "incorrect". In fact it should clearly state the obvious: Tony is BULLSHITTING. Pyne is BULLSHITTING... Hockey is BULLSHITTING...