Tony Abbott is either a barefaced liar or he has a mind like Swiss cheese. "This is the worst-managed program in living memory, bar none," he spluttered on Wednesday, banging on again about the government's roof insulation scheme.

Hardly. That distinction belongs to the Howard government's grand plan to acquire the Super Seasprite helicopter for the navy, an epic fiasco that blundered along for 12 years and squandered well over $1 billion before it was scrapped.

Given Phoney Toney's claim, ad nauseam, that only the Coalition can save the nation from Labor's waste and extravagance, here is a useful recap:

The Howard government signed to buy 11 of these helicopters in 1997, for $746 million. The project was dodgy from day one: the Seasprites were an American design from the late 1950s but somehow they were to be crammed with 21st-century avionics and weapons systems. This was the equivalent of trying to stuff a formula one Ferrari engine into an HD Holden station wagon; it was never going to work, and it never did.

The choppers could fly only in daylight and good weather and even then they were dangerously unstable. Eventually, they were grounded permanently in 2006, although not before another $201 million had been thrown away on buying Penguin air-to-surface missiles for them.

For years, the Howard government dithered about cancelling the project. Kevin Rudd's first defence minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, finally pulled the pin in 2008. Last year federal Auditor-General Ian Macphee tabled a report to Parliament that found the Seasprite shambles had cost the taxpayer more than $1.4 billion.

With zilch to show for it. The helicopters were handed back to the manufacturer, who apparently flogged them off to some east Europeans. The Penguin missiles are unusable on any other Australian military aircraft and presumably are still sitting in a shed somewhere.

By contrast, Labor's stimulus package of the pink batt installations and the school building projects was a triumph. "One of the most impressive economic policies I've seen, ever," said the Nobel Prize-winning American economist Joseph Stiglitz last month.

What short memories we have.

The prospect of Abbott in The Lodge is grim enough but the circus he would install on his front bench is truly terrifying. I have compiled a short form guide, in no particular order:

Deputy Prime Minister, the National Party's Warren Truss. Who?

Deputy Liberal leader and minister for foreign affairs, Julie Bishop. Beautifully groomed, famed for her "death stare". But, like Lord Downer before her, would need help using the atlas at Foreign Affairs.

Senator Eric Abetz. Der Fuehrer der Liberal Partei in dem Senat, und der dummkopf aus Tasmanien, die uns die Godwin Grech Affaere brachte. Gott helfe uns.

Senator Barnaby Joyce. Babbling hayseed bean counter from redneck Queensland, liable to confuse millions, billions and trillions. Spooked by fear of Chinese. Riverview old boy, like Abbott himself: "I talk to Tony all the time. And we have a very constructive relationship, and a very open relationship. Sounds like it. And not a sexual relationship." - ABC Radio National Breakfast, February 2009.

Kevin Andrews. Yes, incredibly, he's still around. Barbered dolt. Fierce opponent of stem cell research, a woman's right to abortion, and all that stuff. Botched the introduction of WorkChoices so badly it had to be handed to Joe Hockey. Became a laughing stock with his Inspector Clouseau antics in the Mohamed Haneef affair.

Joe Hockey. What's a nice guy like him doing in a place like this?

Andrew Robb. Tired old party hack, cynical pragmatist with a talent for hyperbole and confected outrage but little else.

Christopher Pyne. Once accurately described by Julia Gillard as a "mincing poodle". Lightweight fop in the Adelaide manner, but wins a point for his ill-concealed loathing of his fellow South Australian Liberal Cory Bernardi.

Senator Cory Bernardi. Former champion rower, may have been whacked on the head by an oar once too often. Believes climate change is a socialist plot and wants to ban the burqa because "it is now emerging as the preferred disguise of bandits and ne'er-do-wells". Despises Pyne in return.

Malcolm Turnbull. Brooding Point Piper plutocrat and cat lover. A devout believer in his own second coming and will do his level best to engineer it.

The thought of this lot in power for three years chills the blood.

A shameless play for grasping bogans

The most depressing thing about this election has been the race to the bottom. Both sides have been frantic to appease focus groups of bogan ''aspirationals'' who fear their ceilings will explode at any minute, that an Afghan village is about to move in next door and that, without another truckload of middle-class welfare, the new jet ski will remain beyond reach. The rest of us can get stuffed.

Occasionally there was a glimmer of something better.  

On the ABC's Q&A program last Monday a greying baby boomer named Geoff Thomas put this question to Tony Abbott: ''I am a Vietnam veteran. I have operated a plumbing business for 37 years and I support a Liberal philosophy.  I have a gay son who is a very hardworking and decent person that I am very proud of.  I easily overcame my ignorance regarding gay marriage once I gave it a small amount of consideration. When will you and the Liberal Party overcome your ignorance and start treating gay people with the respect and dignity that they, like all other Australian citizens, deserve?''

Abbott gave him the usual swivelling non-answer, and the truth is that Julia Gillard would have done the same. Bold leadership is dead.

Labor by a short head.

Mike Carlton

Yes we know... But why did not the media point this — and a lot more — out, earlier? Why did not the ABC grilled Tony about his porkies with a fair blow torch rather than use an already extinguished candle? The private media has been hell-bent on panning Julia in a proportion of about 80 per cent. The media in general did not want to see the success of the school and insulation programmes because the media only sees faulty bits... In doing so, the media magnifies small problems to the point that everything is crook. Someone dies in a hospital and the entire health system is crook. Someone dies on the road, and the entire road policy of the government is crook... But the media mostly love Tony because he parades as a jack strap "fighter" and sings from the same song book, against Labor... The ABC has been very wishy-washy against Tony, I believe for fear of appearing "unbalanced"... Apart from a few journalists, the ABC was not willing to tackle Tony — and his team of polical gnomes — with vigour and rigour — often accepting fluff and spin, while the ABC used a more negative slant on Julia — even in the news.

Hopefull, as I write these words, Tony would be defeated. That would be the "natural" way for this election to go. But I'm like Mike Carlton... The thought of Tony and his lot in power for three years chills the blood....

Some may forgive Abbott for not being a "tech-head", and perhaps for seeking the gospel truth from George Pell and John Howard from time to time, but Tony supporting Sarah Palin.

Australia's really swirling round the porcelain when in just a few days we may have a Prime Minister who described Sarah Palin in his 2008 blog as "... a gutsy, capable, optimistic, decent woman to show the world (again) that you can be a female politician without being stereotyped ..."

Eh? A bit of hyperbole Tony? May you never again accuse Julia Gillard of incompetence if you want us to accept your judgment of capacity and competence.

In the same blog Abbott goes on to accuse the "women's movement" of not showing respect for "... a competent, successful woman who happens not to subscribe to feminist dogma ..."

Maybe he didn't see the assessments of Sarah Palin provided by Matt Damon or John Cleese or Bill Maher.

Actually one of the main reasons the women's movement (sounds so French Resistance) were anti-Palin - and, I suspect, Abbott was pro-Palin - was because she was in favour of a constitutional amendment to ban abortion.

The respected female activist and writer Gloria Steinem describes the anti-abortion attitude in this way:

... How women got to be inferior, how patriarchy got born, so to speak, is because of controlling women's bodies as the means of reproduction. That's the definition of patriarchy. By saying what seems to us a very reasonable and just thing, which is we would like to control our own bodies, we're seizing control of the means of reproduction. That's quite radical. We should understand reproductive freedom is not just another issue - this is the issue. You'll find right wingers who will be anti-abortion even though they know it's costing money. It's the one issue I know of in which they will go against their financial interest because there's a deeper form of control. We also need to keep explaining that we're talking about reproductive freedom, and that means the freedom to have children as well as not to have children. We would go to the same lengths to make sure that a woman isn't coerced into having an abortion as we would to make sure she has access to a safe one ...

Like Palin, Abbott has made no secret of his anti-abortion position. Although he recently promised not to make changes to abortion laws, including banning Medicare funding for terminations, you can understand why he was asked about it when just under two years ago he said:

... My hope for far fewer abortions is not driven by a desire to meddle in other people's lives. It's driven by a conviction that terminating a potential life is always a tragedy. Just how really compelling are the factors behind 100,000 terminations a year in Australia? It would be a lot easier for women to cope if the rest of us were less judgmental and less hard hearted which is why the Palin family's example is so thoroughly uplifting.

Yes indeed, no one is less judgmental, or respects you, your wife, your daughter, your niece or your girlfriend more than Abbott!

Just last year Abbott accused the Rudd government of betraying religious values when it decided that Australian aid money could be used to fund abortion services if terminations are allowed under local laws. Sounds judgmental to me. And so much for respecting the rights of other people in desperate situations and for promising not to make political decisions based on "religious value".

Just recently on Radio National's Breakfast program Abbott was asked to respond to GetUp's advertisement which highlights, among other things, his attitude towards women. His response:

... GetUp is basically operating as an arm of the Labor Party and I think that if GetUp is fair dinkum they would go back and pick quotes Julia Gillard made back in the 1980s when she was the President of the Australian Union of Students just as they have gone back to the 1970s with some of these quotes of mine ...

Gratuitously criticising GetUp - an independent, grass-roots community advocacy organisation that doesn't back any particular party - may divert attention from the issue, as may references back to the 1970s, but how does Abbott explain away his entire blog dedicated to "The hypocrisy of the women's movement".

Perhaps people can change? Perhaps something Abbott said 12 months or two years ago has no bearing on what he thinks today? According to Voltaire a man can't change his character so easily: "... as long as his nerves, his blood and his marrow are in the same state, his nature will not change any more than a wolf's and a marten's instinct ...".

I haven't noticed Abbott changing the body of which he's so fond, and Voltaire's truism is supported by the opinions of those who know Abbott: when Father Bill Wright was asked in March this year what he thought Tony Abbott would like to see in an ideal world his response shot back: "Catholic morality."

Damon described the possibility of Palin as President as a "bad Disney movie". The prospect of Abbott as Prime Minister of Australia conjures up images of a Cohen Brothers tragi-comedy. The Liberals are trying to generate "trust issues" around Gillard, which may be fair enough, but voters also need to assess whether they can trust Abbott to be more or less progressive, more or less inclusive, or more or less responsible with power.

On the face of it one must doubt it: can you really trust someone so willing to opportunistically disclaim his well documented and obviously entrenched values and opinions just so he gets over the line?

Bukowski may be right: "Born into this ... into a place where the masses elevate fools ..."

Abbott: Australia's Sarah Palin