When I was at secondary school, my English class studied a collection of essays, one of which analysed the methods of Nazi propaganda in the 1930s.
There were, I recall, three components of this: an element of truth; gross exaggeration; and constant repetition.
I have been starkly reminded of this trilogy by the habitual behaviour of Abbott and his opposition colleagues during the past 15 months.
The elements of truth the opposition is exploiting are, first, that the Prime Minister did make an (implicitly qualified) commitment before the last election not to introduce a tax on carbon; and second, that she has indeed had legislation passed putting a price on carbon as an interim measure, before a future carbon-trading scheme is introduced a few years down the track.
Abbott's exaggerations of these basic facts are distortions of the real situation.
As we have seen, and as he well knows, a broken commitment is not a ''lie''.
Ironically, Abbott calling what Australia's Prime Minister said a ''lie'' may itself be an example of what Adolf Hitler called a ''big lie'', that is a lie so ''colossal'' it has a ''certain force of credibility'' because the populace ''would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously'' (Mein Kampf, volume I, chapter X).