Having a shot at the vacuity of this election campaign is a little like nuking fish in a barrel, but it is remarkable that fundamental dishonesty lies at the heart of almost all the major policy themes to emerge thus far.
Last November, before the political opportunists within Labor really started to stretch their legs, the Finance Minister, Lindsay Tanner, made an interesting speech that touched on population growth.
Tanner was responding to the controversy surrounding Treasury's projection that Australia would have a population of 36 million by mid-century. He made the obvious point that it was pointless to try to set targets for population growth so far into the future.
"The argument that Australia is already overpopulated is nonsense," he said.
''According to ABS data, Melbourne had 487 inhabitants per square kilometre in 2006. Most major European cities are much more densely populated, often housing several thousand people per square kilometre.
''Even Dublin has a population density of 1273 per square kilometre. Bangladesh is roughly twice the size of Tasmania, and home to about seven times the population of Australia. If Australia seeks to persuade the rest of the world that we are overpopulated, we will be rightly laughed at."
Arguments about population growth are not new.
Thomas Malthus predicted that a rising population would put a brake on economic expansion back in the 18th century. But for much of Australia's history, a strong train of thought has tended to go in the other direction.
"In the 1920s, prime minister Stanley Bruce pursued a policy of 'men, money and markets'. After World War II it was 'populate or perish' and only a few years ago we had the then treasurer Peter Costello telling Australians to "have one child for mum, one for dad, and one for the country," Tanner said.
But who, in this election campaign, is putting the "population debate" in any sort of context? Not the Gillard government, which is campaigning with all the verve of a third-term state administration. Gillard is attempting to placate the suburbs by blaming angst about urban planning and transport on population and, more quietly, the growth of migration.
And now the Abbott opposition is acting increasingly affronted that the government has joined it in a race to the right on the issue.
But here's a prediction: whoever wins government will do nothing, longer-term, to curb Australia's rate of population growth. They might promise to, but it will ultimately be an empty promise.
To do so would simply not make sense. Would an Australian government really wilfully deny businesses the workers they need? As the demographer Peter McDonald, from the Australian National University, and others have pointed out, migration rates are almost entirely contingent on business demand for labour. Migration increases faster when the economy pushes harder.
And if workers are not being brought from overseas, where else will they come from?
The government can corral more second-income earners into working longer hours. It can push disability support pensioners into jobs.
But these measures will only get you so far.
Would a government really risk a bidding war breaking out for domestic workers, driving up labour costs and inflation, by holding the reins on migration? History would suggest not. But for Gillard and Abbott, floating in the breeze of public opinion, history is evidently the last thing on their mind.
Which brings us to another lie of the campaign: the Coalition's bizarre notion that making a few cuts to the budget will somehow ease the cost of living. ''The best way to reduce the cost of living is to get the Budget back to surplus,'' Joe Hockey told Laurie Oakes yesterday.
As Hockey explains it, businesses are going under and families are groaning under weight of interest rate pressures because the Australian government is taking all the money. The government is borrowing $100 million a day, and that is $100 million that can't be used by the private sector, the argument seems to be.
Which is perfectly fine logic, provided one ignores the financial innovations of the past century and suspends belief in the existence of international capital markets.
"There are increasing bankruptcies, and that is the direct function of the reckless spending of Labor," the Coalition's finance spokesman, Andrew Robb, says.
Are they the same firms going bankrupt as the ones ripping off the school hall program?
It is fair enough to rip the government over mismanaged spending programs. But it stretches credulity to say that a few spending cuts will help ease power bills, water prices, and the strain of the home mortgage. What is wrong with simply saying you would spend the money better?
Ross Gittins is on leave.
