| Earlier in this campaign I coined the term “tactical obfuscation” to describe the dark political art of what the uninitiated might unkindly call “lying”. Little did I know how much it would take-off — although hopefully not from an Indonesian air base. Dominating the headlines once more today is the question of when and how much the Australian government knew about a Russian request to use a military base off Papua, just 1300km from Australia, for its own aircraft. INTERACTIVE: Don't know who to vote for? Election MatchMaker is here to help ‘Off The Pace’ by Brett Lethbridge. This request was apparently made in February but only publicly revealed by the venerated international military journal Janes this month. However The Australian today revealed the government has been aware of the request since March. Plenty of people are now jumping up and down saying that this means Anthony Albanese and/or his ministers lied about what they knew and when they knew it. In fact, with one glaring exception that proved the rule, the PM and his ministers have been incredibly careful to not lie about it — but that doesn’t mean they have told the whole truth. Enter the art of tactical obfuscation. CLICK HERE FOR JOE HILDEBRAND'S FULL ANALYSIS | 