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THE unelectable Tony Abbott continues to disappoint his critics.

We'll take that as a comment. Tony Jones on Lateline on Wednesday:

TONIGHT the three independents demand access to Treasury costings of government and opposition costings. Tony Abbott made very few missteps during the campaign but in this critical period of negotiations he may just have made a critical blunder. Bob Katter, would you regard this on his part as a terrible blunder?

Katter: Yes, I do.

Flake. Michelle Grattan on ABC Radio National Breakfast:

IT makes the opposition look flaky at best and deceptive at worst.

Absurd. Mark Kenny on Sky News:

I'VE rarely heard a weaker argument put than the one that's been put. It's just an absurd situation.

Lenore Taylor in the SMH yesterday:

THE independents' request for the full costings of policy promises is entirely reasonable.

Frightened. Peter Hartcher in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

LAST night Abbott folded his arms and jammed his fingers in his ears, metaphorically speaking. Is Abbott frightened or cocky? In either case, it is a bad look.

But SMH dissident Mark Davis refuses to toe the line yesterday:

IF there is any lesson from the last tumultuous six months in federal politics, it is that Abbott's critics underestimate his political skills at their peril. Abbott's tactics are those of a high-stakes poker player who has made a careful calculation of the odds he confronts.

But seriously . . . Deborah Cameron on ABC 702 Mornings in Sydney yesterday with ethicist-of-choice Simon Longstaff :

ARE there serious ethical issues around election betting?

Longstaff: Yes, I think there are.

Cameron: You wonder whether or not, especially in this election, it contributed to the trivialisation of politics, the idea that it was all a big game and that there was really nothing serious about it.

Longstaff: You don't want to demean the nature of the democracy rather than allowing for the fact that a society wants to take it's democracy really seriously.

Deborah Cameron on June 22:

IF Kevin Rudd is a lemon, then what fruit or vegetable is Tony Abbott? Mary, what do you think?

Mary: I think of Tony Abbott as a prawn; great body but an ugly head.

Cameron: Another Mary says Tony Abbott is like a coconut, particularly with his hair. I'd never thought of that. Tony Abbott is a halloween pumpkin, says Andrew in Frenchs Forest. All smiles, very scary but nothing inside.

Roger Gerbil in The Punch on Wednesday:

THIS is the sickening non-human toll of Saturday's election - a psychic octopus which has literally worked itself to death trying to determine whether Labor or the Coalition will form government. The octopus featured above had initially tipped a narrow victory, then amended its tip in week two following the Rudd leaks to say the Coalition could govern in its own right. It then picked a hung parliament last Friday, declared itself quietly confident early Saturday that Labor could sneak home, then reversed its position and said the Coalition was back in the hunt after it saw the early results from Hasluck coming through at 8.30pm. It spent most of yesterday listening to Bob Katter's press conference and trying to fathom Rob Oakeshott's call for a new politics before finally expiring just before 5pm.

The SMH's Elizabeth Farrelly travels to the country, and doesn't like it:

IT seems my fantasy of vivid Aussie ruralism - cheerful pubs, log fires, earthy humour, good simple food and staunch defence of country - must bow a while longer to the ubiquitous scourge of TAB and screen; pokies, lobster mornay, girlie premixes and wild teen bingeing. Will the expected flood of "regional" policy from a parliament hung-by-country make this better? Or worse?