Andrew Bolt: I’ve never seen such brazen liars as Anthony Albanese and his election thieves

I’ve never seen such brazen liars as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his election thieves. And the truly frightening thing is that this lying works.

I’m not naive. I’ve worked on two Labor election campaigns and reported on many more, and know politicians often lie.

But, swear to God, I’ve never seen such brazen liars as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his election thieves.

And the truly frightening thing is that this lying works. Too many voters seem to like it; too many journalists don’t question it.

Take Albanese’s astonishing lying about Opposition leader Peter Dutton at his National Press Club speech on Wednesday.

Like: “Dutton is going to this election with a $600bn nuclear reactor scheme.”

No, he’s not. The CSIRO says it’s one fifth that price.

Dutton’s “other big idea is to sack 41,000 Australians”.

Anthony Albanese delivering his National Press Club speech on Wednesday. Picture: Jason Edwards

No, it’s not. He says he just won’t replace 41,000 public servants when they quit.

Dutton has a “proposal to ban women working from home”.

No, he doesn’t. He did want public servants in Canberra – just them – to work in the office, but dropped even that.

Albanese has been “strengthening our defence force”.

No, he hasn’t. He has instead stripped our defence of a squadron of F-35 aircraft, a regiment of self-propelled howitzers, two sea lift and replenishment ships, 321 infantry fighting vehicles, three frigates and six Offshore Patrol Vessels, leaving the navy so weak that it couldn’t shadow three Chinese warships circling our continent, firing weapons.

On it goes. Albanese has also claimed Dutton will “gut Medicare”, when Dutton has in fact matched Albanese’s spending.

Peter Dutton has matched Albanese’s spending on Medicare. Picture: Dan Peled

Albanese this week even claimed “we’ve got the debt down”, when in fact Labor’s deficit this year is $27bn, and gross debt next year will hit $1 trillion.

Albanese’s lying is not new. He promised at the last election to cut power bills by $275. But his lying is now so florid that he still denies falling off a stage a couple of weeks ago, even though TV footage showed just that.

Albanese’s one tribute to truth at the press club was to dodge a question on his promise three years ago to make Australians better off.

I guess he knows he broke that so badly that Coles on Wednesday said customers were now buying fewer “treats” and “going meat-free a couple nights a week” to save money.

In a normal country in normal times, such a liar would be laughed out of politics. Yet polls suggest Albanese will be re-elected.

What does this say about this country – and what Albanese will do next?

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: I’ve never seen such brazen liars as Anthony Albanese and his election thieves