Mr Abbott chose an11th-hour interview on SBS World News, Australia's least watched free-to-air news bulletin, to give voters a crystal clear set of guarantees.

Interviewer Anton Enus asked a simple question about cuts to public broadcasters and received much more in response.

The man labelled "Dr No" by Julia Gillard promised "no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST, and, no cuts to the ABC or SBS".

The SBS website clip has now been shared on Facebook more than 8000 times.

YouTube videos of the promises have been viewed more than 110,000 times, spiking sharply after the May budget and continuing to rise.

Labor has mixed the interview into its "You'll Pay for Abbott's Lies" attack ads. The audio has even been set to a blissed-out hip-hop beat in a "No Cuts" video.

For the Coalition's enemies, it is the grab that keeps on giving.

When exactly the electorate made up their mind to kick the Labor mob out is a matter for political historians. But it was almost certainly not during the 6.30pm broadcast on Friday, September 6, 2013.

After what was described as a marathon, three-year campaign, Mr Abbott had chosen to taper off that day, campaigning in just two seats - one of which was safely Liberal.

Yet despite his quiet day, he decided to appear on SBS in a live cross from Penrith.

The "optics" of an interview in a deserted football stadium seemed odd but suited the contender's sporting metaphors.

"This is like a grand final," Mr Abbott told Enus. "There's only one try in it, either side can still win."

Behind his shoulder lay the field where, weeks earlier, he had raised the spectre of his so-called "women problem" by noting the "sex appeal" of Liberal candidate Fiona Scott.

Enus, an award-winning broadcaster with 30 years' experience, asked Mr Abbott a question that conservative politicians regularly side-step.

"Well, what about public broadcasters, Mr Abbott, another soft target? Are the ABC and the SBS in the firing line?"

Mr Abbott - the politician who wanted to under-promise and over-deliver - sought to soothe every fear.

"I trust everyone has listened to what Joe Hockey has said, last week and again this week: no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST, and, no cuts to the ABC or SBS."

But when Mr Abbott said "no cuts" he did not mean the ABC would be "exempt from any savings measure", Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on 7.30 on Wednesday.

"To accept that, you would have to assume that he had decided on the eve of the election to overrule and contradict the very carefully considered statements that Joe Hockey and I had been making," Mr Turnbull said.

Presenter Leigh Sales wondered whether voters "should've been parsing Mr Abbott's comments and Mr Hockey's comments and your comments to try to figure out exactly what that meant".

On Thursday, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said the reduced budget did not amount to a broken promise or cut because the ABC had escaped "efficiency dividends" for the past 20 years.

And in May, the budget raised the idea of a promise hierarchy in which "repairing the budget" counted as a kind of meta-promise.

All of which makes the simplicity of that Friday night last September seem a long time ago.