Don’t blame me, they just put my signature on the letters. That pretty much was the Tony Abbott reaction to criticism that a Liberal Party email sent in his name which criticised the government’s flood recovery tax/levy ended with a link: “Click to donate to help our campaign against Labor’s flood tax”. He told a press gathering “the donation information was added by the Liberal Party and it’s quite standard practice for political parties to add this sort of information to their communications with supporters.” Why, even the Labor Party, he argued, had donations information on a flood-related email it sent out to its own supporters last week.

Perhaps the best thing for The Stump to do is let readers make up their own mind.

First of all the Julia Gillard flood relief letter:

3-02-2011 juliafloodemail

And now the Tony Abbott contribution:

3-02-2011 tonyfloodemail

The appeal for funds by the Liberal Party is easy enough to spot but you need more of an eagle eye to spot Labor’s, hidden away as it is with all those other donation addresses for flood relief funds. So here it is – the little $ symbol at the top of the email:

3-02-2011 donatetolabor