How long do we want to go backin time with Abbotts lies?
Now Abbott lies about lying, copies Howard's Manildra
By Margo Kingston
August 27, 2003
isn't that right?http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/27/1061663853365.html Tony Abbott is fighting for his political skin, but he still can't lie straight in bed. Last night, he put out a statement suggesting he did not lie to the ABC. Why? You guessed it, he was only replying to the first part of the question! And, you mightn't guess this, because offering to pay Terry Sharples' legal expenses was not offering money!
He's learnt from the master deceiver and has done a Manildra!
The Four Corners question from Tony Jones was: So there was never any question of any party or other funds from any other source being offered to Terry Sharples?
Abbott: Absolutely not.
In his statement last night, Abbott said:
"I replied, in response to the first part of the question: 'Absolutely not.' No Liberal funds were at any stage offered or involved."
But Tony, the question asked was whether any Liberal Party OR OTHER FUNDS were at any stage involved. He must be taking lessons from the master, because that was how Howard tried to get out of lying to Parliament this month (See Howard meets Honan: You be the judge whether he lied about it).
Abbott's second attempt to say black is white and lies are true was to suggest that the trust was set up after the interview. So it took him only three weeks to set up a trust and sign the trust deed? Yes, Abbott told Kerry O'Brien on the 7.30 Report last night. He set up the trust to find other disgruntled One Nation members to legally destroy One Nation when his prior arrangement with Sharples fell over.
But that proves the lie, doesn't it, because he'd denied any funds from any source being offered to Sharples. No, said Abbott, because offering to pay legal costs is not "funding" the legal case or paying "money" for it. And when he made the promise to Sharples - before conceiving the trust idea - where was he going to get the money? "I'm not going to tell you," Abbott told Kerry, and he's not going to tell us who donated to the trust, either. Oh dear, we're getting too close to the shadow world of big power and big money which manipulates our democracy for its own ends, aren't we? Way too close.
Abbott signed a note on July 11, 1998, long before the Four Corners interview, personally guaranteeing to fund the Sharples case. Here are the relevant extracts from Deborah Snow's piece on Abbott in the Herald in 2000:
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