The Friday Mash team of NoSpin Doctors have had a particularly challenging week. They have been desperately trying to identify what Tony Abbott would have said had he been totally honest about his dishonesty.

Spurred on by an unswerving dedication to bring the inspiration of truth to a bewildered public they finally arrived at a summary of what they believe Tony would like to say were he free from the shackles of spin and political subterfuge.

“I’ve always had the reputation as a straight shooter who tells the truth.” Goodness knows how that happened.

The spin doctors have taught me to ‘um’ and ‘ah’ a lot. This gives me time when answering a question to decide whether to answer a different one, make a policy statement, prevaricate, procrastinate, or in very rare instances tell the truth as long as it doesn’t set a precedent.

Contrary to popular opinion politicians are never dishonest except for most of the Labor Party. Politicians however are prone to mis-speak, suffer political amnesia, become disingenuous or recite disingenuous mis-speak sent out by the spin doctors.

If I’m asked a question like ‘Do you think Barnaby Joyce was a good choice as Finance Minister?’ the obvious answer is ‘no, he was absolute crap’. But obviously I can’t say that because it would piss off Barnaby and the Nationals, give the Labor Party a free kick and make me look like an absolute twit for appointing him.

So I spin an answer like ‘Barnaby was selected from a huge selection of first-class candidates for a specific short-term assignment. He performed brilliantly, made Lindsay Tanner look like an absolute goose and was moved to a regional portfolio more suited to his talents’. Everybody recognises that its spin and I get brownie points for showing new-age sensitivity and not dumping the stupid ratbag.

When I admitted that sometimes I don’t tell the truth I was astonished by the reaction. No-one thought I was spinning or mis-speaking as usual and everyone dumped on me for telling the truth. Well if that’s the reaction I don’t know why I bother to be so truthful.

Julia had the cheek to call me Phony Tony. If she tells many more porkies her nose will soon be as long as Pinocchio’s. Next she’ll be telling us that all the BER stuff was built at cost price It would be a waste of time to give her a lie-detector test. She’s needs a truth detector.

I’m sure you noticed they didn’t roll out Kevin to call me Phony Tony. The only truthful thing he’s said since he came to office was ‘Malcolm’s not fit to be prime minister.

Despite the setbacks I shall continue my quest to encourage honesty in the political process and in a few months I’ll confess to being occasionally dishonest again just to check whether other politicians are honest enough not to believe me.

On the other hand I’ll have to be careful not to push this honesty thing too far. The Australian Democrats ran on the slogan ‘Keeping the Bastards Honest’ and look what happened to them.

Just a further thought. Why did everybody kick up such a fuss when I confessed I don’t tell the truth sometimes? Everybody knew that already”.