His cabinet rejected a plea for $25 million in assistance for SPC Ardmona last week, citing the company’s “over-generous” enterprise agreement with workers as one reason for the knock back.

Mr Abbott led us to believe those entitlements included nine weeks of annual leave.

SPC Ardmona boss Peter Kelly yesterday categorically denied that, saying workers got 20 days leave a year.

Clearly, both claims can’t be right.

Liberal MP Sharman Stone — who has fought hard for the company and its workers — says it is Mr Abbott who is being loose with the truth when he blamed the company’s lack of viability on workplace conditions, adding: “If it’s not the truth, that’s right, it’s lying.”

It is disappointing to think Mr Abbott and his senior ministers sought to shift at least some of the blame on to SPC Ardmona’s workers.

These are not people living the good life at the expense of the taxpayer. They are ordinary working class Australians, desperate to keep their livelihoods.

The suggestion that some sort of greed on their part has contributed to difficult times for the company is mischievous, at best.