Reading the AFR with its decideldly pro-Labor tilt is a quite irritating moment in a day. The front page lead today is “Treasury warns of budget blowouts” which is not about the past and Labor but about the future and “a warning to Australia’s politicians and voters” in general and the Coaltion in particular. Thanks for the warning but where were you guys at Treasury when you were designing the last six budgets and then covering up for the Government.

But just in case we were worried about irresponsible actions by politicians, the front page helpfully points its finger in its story across the top of the page: “Hockey rejects surplus date”. And as an aid to making sure the point is understood, there is in smaller print, “Labor demands Coalition costings”. Did they indeed? Well we’ve already seen Labor’s costings as noted in the smaller print as well which reads “$30bn budget deficit confirmed”. And who, might it be asked, is responsible for that? Doesn’t say, but it does warn that if the Coalition doesn’t implement Labor’s tobacco tax then the budget hole will be their fault.

There is then another story, “all at sea over the future of the GST” which tells the AFR’s readers that OK, maybe the Coaltion has promised not to raise the GST this time, but Arthur Sinodinos had said ten days ago that this promise is for the first term only. I take it a tobacco tax immediately is better than a very improbable GST rise in three years time since Abbott has made it clear it will not happen. Does the AFR perhaps think it is still dealing with Julia “there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead” Gillard?

And it would be derelict for me not to mention the article splashed across what is described as a news page on page 4 in which the ever reliable Laura Tingle has written, according to the headline, “Abbott has a fiscal gap left to explain”. Whether there is anything for Rudd to explain is left unexplained.

There is, however, one story that does shift the other way, this on page 2, and which really is an actual news story. Its headline: “Business conditions worst in four years”. What that has to do with the election no one at the AFR is prepared to say.