Things must have beeen going badly for Tony Abbott - he went back to touting his fire fighting credentials

This is Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott allegedly taking part in a scheduled hazard reduction burn at Cottage Point in Ku-Ring-Gai National Park on Sydney's north shore.

Cottage Point has an enclave of approximately 52-60 mostly holiday and luxury homes.

Jon Russell of the Cottage Point brigade and Prime Minister Tony Abbott at Cottage Point

One can see in this posed photograph that Mr. Abbott is wearlng the only the only stained uniform of the three people pictured.

In fact the only item of uniform not heavily stained are his protective googles.

Remarkably for someone presumably so smoke and oil affected, Mr. Abbott's face is also almost as fresh as if he was just walking into a media conference in Canberra.

There were reportedly only 27 volunteers attending this controlled hazard reduction which probably took place somewhere within a 352 hectare section of the 154 sq km park - so it was not a large burn.

One has to wonder if Mr. Abbott's media team went looking for an old unwashed uniform and helmet belonging to another firefighter, so that the Prime Minister could be snapped looking as though he had actually been fighting a fire.

Six days later in yet another spin cycle Prime Minister Abbott was able to insert both himself and his daughters into the private grief of so many families:

Snapshots from The Age, 20 July 2014