Credit where due

It's a long way from making up for their refusal to oppose the Cons on their throne speech. But contrary to the bizarre media effort to minimize Conadscam, the federal Libs deserve credit for properly keeping focused on a serious issue for which the Cons have yet to provide anything resembling a reasonable answer.

Of course, the Cons seem particularly determined to keep stonewalling and deflecting - now by trying to claim that a scheme which plainly originated from the Cons' central command is less indicative of a party's commitment to following the law than a single dubious Lib MP - rather than providing any meaningful response.

But the last message the Cons should be sent at this point is that they can make a scandal go away by implausibly pretending they don't know what they did wrong. And if (as seems likely) the ongoing investigation concludes that the Cons indeed violated their national spending limit as a result of Conadscam, then the Cons' stubborn refusal to recognize their own fault should be the final nail in the coffin of the Cons' self-proclaimed commitment to accountability.