IT'S hard to believe but it appears that Leichhardt MP Jim Turnour has several secret identities, including a stint as a middle aged Victorian woman called Maria.

Mr Turnour has also lived in the skin of a 65-year-old former ABC radio journalist from the Macquarie electorate and masqueraded as ex-union heavyweight Bill Shorten.

In one revealing little episode, he pretended to be Jill Hall, a baby boomer with a long political career from New South Wales. I stumbled across evidence of this startling schizophrenic behaviour while researching this week’s column.

I wanted to write about Mr Turnour’s beloved "working families" and the struggles they face.

During a holiday down south this week, I had lunch with a former Cairns family who are living proof that times are getting tougher out there in the nation’s suburbs. They were forced to move south to be near relatives and access better medical treatment after the man of the house was diagnosed with kidney cancer.

It was disheartening and depressing to hear of their modest and compromised lifestyle.

They only bought toys, clothes and household items at second hand op shops and took the 30-minute drive into town for groceries and chores just once a week to avoid sky-rocketing petrol prices.

With distinct bitterness in their voices, they regretted voting for Kevin Rudd’s team, saying they were "tricked" into believing Labor could help "working families" address the interminable problems of rising interest rates and living costs.

So to find out the latest from Mr Turnour about his party’s promises to help families just like them, I jumped on the internet.

About the only thing I found was his press release from October 14.But something about it wasn’t quite right.

"Over the past few months, I have been out and about in Leichhardt listening to the views of the community," Mr Turnour apparently said. "Their message is simple. Despite a booming economy, the majority of Leichhardt’s working families struggle to make ends meet as they face increasing grocery bills, higher petrol prices and huge rents and mortgages.

"After 11 years in power, Mr Howard is stale and has lost touch with working families."

As I made my way through the paragraphs packed with cliches and market-tested mantras, I decided to engage in a little experiment.

With a quick Google search, I discovered Mr Turnour had mysteriously moonlighted as a Labor candidate in different electorates across Australia.

Check out this press release from ALP Calwell candidate Maria Vamvakinou.

"Over the past few months, I have been out and about in Calwell listening to the views of the community," Ms Vamvakinou also apparently said.

"Their message is simple. Despite a booming economy, the majority of Calwell’s working families are struggling to make ends meet as they face increasing grocery bills, higher petrol prices and huge mortgages.

"After 11 years in power, Mr Howard is stale and has lost touch with working families."

On and on it went, word for word.

Incredibly, Mr Turnour’s magical mimicking act didn’t stop there.

His words of wisdom can also be found in press releases from fellow candidates such as Bob Debus, Ms Hall and Mr Shorten.

We all know politicians from both sides are manufactured on conveyor belts and forced to act like performing parrots to spread a unified party message.

But Mr Turnour and his colleagues are playing a cruel joke on their constituents by pretending these copy and paste press releases are unique and sincere sentiments.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks working families deserve more than just fake compassion and generic, plagiarised platitudes.

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