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Just when we thought there was nothing more to say on the great political debate of the day, what with our leaders invoking everyone from Lady Macbeth to Bonnie and Clyde and, glory be, George Costanza from Seinfeld, along comes the true voice of reason, Shane Warne.

Yes. Question time's shrieking match in Canberra about who was the greater liar about carbon taxes had barely choked on its own hogwash yesterday when Warne lobbed a leg-break via Twitter.

''Message to our PM,'' tweeted Warnie. ''Reduce taxes for all the hard-working people in Australia . . . PLEASE !!!!!!''

Tony Abbott speaks to Stanka Baltoska during his visit to the Queanbeyan Fresh Food Market yesterday. Tony Abbott speaks to Stanka Baltoska during his visit to the Queanbeyan Fresh Food Market yesterday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The sheer novelty of it left the Parliament as flummoxed as Mike Gatting at Old Trafford when Warne bowled the ball of the century in 1993.

Warne, not thought to be as hard-up in the trouser-pocket department as most hard-working Australians, is, of course, a recognised tweeter with one of the fastest mobile-phone thumb movements in the business. His 393,984 followers, however, are more accustomed to following his recent Twittersphere wooing of Elizabeth Hurley than his views on tax policy. All those exclamation marks!!!! Six of them. Clearly, this was Warnie in full passion.

Perhaps he figured Hurley was in quest of a man of national affairs, rather than a fellow in quest of an affair with an exotic dancer.

Indeed, only minutes before his clarion cry for tax relief, he had commented favourably on Gillard's ability to stump Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. ''Abbott just got owned by our PM in a debate. Think it's time for Abbott to put budgie smugglers on and go for a swim!!'' he tweeted. ''Owned'' is a word for defeating someone. So Warnie was having a bob each way on the Gillard-Abbott contest.

Still, in the current political atmosphere nobody would be entirely dumbfounded to discover that Daryl Somers had ventured a view.

The carbon tax, which Gillard promised during last year's election campaign would never darken the nation's doorstep while she was PM, has the opposition in such a froth that Coalition leaders can hardly assemble enough analogies.

Tony Abbott has taken in the past couple of days to declaring Gillard is not simply a liar, but a reincarnation of Lady Macbeth for her role in the political slaying of Kevin Rudd, haunted by the ghost of Banquo, who apparently is Rudd.

He was at it again yesterday, and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey took up the challenge, calling Gillard and her Treasurer Wayne Swan ''the Bonnie and Clyde of public policy''. Swan, hollered Hockey, was ''a modern-day George Costanza cowering beneath his desk''.

Gillard riposted that she would stare down what she called the Coalition's ''desperate fear campaign built on a fabric of lies'' and declared she had heard everything now - a lecture on courage from Hockey, who himself once famously tweeted a plea about what he should think about climate change.

Amid this standard of sledging, Shane Warne's intervention sounded like the wisdom of Solomon.

Tony Wright is Age national affairs correspondent.