News paper writers are not bad at printing anything that goes, even untruths or assumed truths, which take up the majority of parliamentary question time.
The amount of reliance put on what is written in newspapers, and without accountability. This should be rearranged by legislation, so as a disclaimer at least can be attached.
Some say Abbott has moved on, no doubt he would, but this will be first on the agenda when parliament resumes. Followed by Abbotts bed mate Mr Palmer.

Alan Austin: "So I am not sure who you think was guilty of misleading the Parliament, Raycom."

It is a figment of your imagination that you think that I implied that Julia Gillard or someone else was guilty of misleading parliament. I simply pointed out that the PM would have mislead parliament had she repeated her claim that " the story that's on the front page of The Australian newspaper today is completely untrue" in Questions Without Notice.

You demonstrate a talent for twisting what you read into what you want to see.

Mr Abbott is a gem for just that, he believes with a passion what he reads in the paper. Should not there be accountability from question askers, other than i read it in the paper. It's not knew that papers will print bias as well as lies to get interest in the story, consequences are not theirs.
How much of this was assumed, as Abbott assumed it to be true. News papers have got questions to answer. Freedom of the press, should not mean print what you like, legislated guide-lines are in order.
Susceptible people who believe for their own purpose, proper printing rules are a necessity.

For those of you who are still fooled by this article, it is by choice, and not because you have not been warned.

To make it crystal clear, let us take AA’s assertion: “But all seven fresh revelations were false.”.

By what unsustainable process does he arrive at this false conclusion?

Easy, he pretends that , instead of reading a newspaper article, he is conducting a Court case, where he is the Judge, and he requires evidence. If there is what he deems to be unsatisfactory evidence for a statement, he rejects it as untrue. If there is unsatisfactory evidence against it, he still rejects it as untrue.

These are the seven elements, taken from AA’s post above:

1. The Prime Minister had withdrawn her offer to Bob Carr. (headline and paragraphs 1, 14)
2. A mutiny had occurred: the PM had been defeated by her colleagues. (headline and paragraphs 1, 2, 4)
3. Senior ministers had forced the PM to accept either Smith or Crean as Foreign Minister. (paragraphs 1, 5)
4. Internal Labor Party stability had broken down. (paragraph 2)
5. The PM’s authority had also broken down. (paragraphs 2, 12)
6. The PM had first offered a ministry to Bob Carr in the previous week, before Senator Arbib announced his resignation from the Senate. (paragraph 3)
7. Carr said publicly he was no longer interested in a position in the Senate. (paragraph 15)

These are said to be untrue because of a statement by the PM labelling the story as “completely untrue.”.

Where is the evidence of that? Even AA has to concede the truth of the background to the story, and there is nothing to contradict it other than the short statement of a proven liar.

You are not living in the fantasy world which makes you the judge, Alan.

If the story makes sense, it is probably true. If it is untrue, there is no acceptable evidence of this.

AA: I have to say that I agree with the central point in Leo Lane's post immediately above. You have said, flatly, that everyone else is wrong. But I can't see how you are in a position to know, and you haven't shown us any evidence to suggest that you are in possession of the whole truth. Even in the distant days when I was a political columnist, people would ring me from within both major parties to tell me what was going on, presumably in the hope that I would run with it. I learned very quickly to suspend judgment.

Now it is widely believed (I cannot be an authority here) that the current ALP leaks like the proverbial, so it would be reasonable to suggest that someone, or more than one, rang various of the reporters in the press gallery with what they said was inside dope on the appointments. From your account, either that didn't happen at all, or all those who spoke to reporters got it wrong.

You may be right about all this, but it is pretty hard to accept.

Where did one paper get all of this juicy information from.
I would suspect they were being informed by someone who thought they knew what the procedure was.
Do you think the coalition would have preferred it better if Mr Carr did not get the job.
For the coalition to so heavily believe in the written word, did they instigate it.
Wherever it came from they should be held accountable for what they print.