Murdoch massages Abbott message

The only authority Fitzgerald quotes is Abbott’s parliamentary secretary handling deregulation, Josh Frydenberg.

Fitzgerald concludes: “The Coalition government has already made an auspicious start.”

Really? According to what data? None are referred to.

Admittedly it is early days, but several indicators show Australia’s economy worsening over the last five months – while the rest of the Western world is recovering.

Indicators looking wobbly already – which Fitzgerald curiously ignores – include job numbers,  job participation, inflation, the deficit, debt, economic freedom,  the Aussie dollar and terms of trade.

Others employed by The Australian to write glowingly of the government in recent weeks include Maurice Newman, Gerard Henderson and Greg Sheridan.

In other outlets such as Sydney’s Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s Herald Sun Andrew Bolt is on the job. He holds the record for more than 19 fabricated allegations against Aboriginal people – in two articles – according to Justice Bromberg.

Leading the team of creative writers appears to be Dennis Shanahan at The Australian. He still holds the record for the most false assertions in a daily newspaper front page ‘scoop’. His March 2012 story sought to malign prime minister Julia Gillard with seven damaging allegations about her colleagues vetoing her appointment of Bob Carr as foreign minister. The falsehoods were all based on unattributed quotes, and all exposed later that day.

Shanahan was assigned to cover Abbott’s trip to the WEF at Davos, Switzerland, last week in anticipation that some coverage could be negative.

Shanahan wrote on Monday:

“The Prime Minister's keynote speech as the chairman of the world's premier economic forum prompted strong responses from national and business delegations at the conference last week.”

The myriad reports from Davos provide no evidence for this.