And isn't it marvellous how a leak of a confidential cabinet discussion, however out of context it is taken, can set the Murdoch tabloids to doing what they do best - generating satirical fiction.

Even more risibly, the Telegraph's online poll today asked the question: "Is Julia Gillard right to ignore the plight of pensioners?"

While the selective leak of cabinet discussions is disturbing, and clearly targeted to destabilise Julia Gillard's campaign, there is, to me, a real "So What" about the whole episode, best expressed by David Penberthy (ironically, a former editor of the Telegraph) belting out his tune on another Murdoch organ, its Huffpost-wannabe "The Punch".

Policies are slowly trickling out from both sides of the campaign, but if you want firm and costed specifics you just need to look at the pork barrel being rolled out all over the country.

My highlight of the election campaign so far? It has to be the death-stare contest between Julie Bishop and a garden gnome on first episode of The Chaser's "Yes We Canberra" on Wednesday night. If you're going to trivialise the election, at least be bloody damn funny about it!

Nominations for candidates in the election closed today, and tomorrow the lists should be made public. For me, that's the real start of the election leadup, and I should be able to come up my first draft list of personal voting intentions in Grayndler and for the Senate in New South Wales. And I'm thinking about one very big shock decision...

"Just think.. if this were a soccer match we could have had 30 minutes extra time followed by penalty kicks. #ausvotes #debate #nilnil"

- me on Twitter, 7.36pm 25.7.10

The Leaders Debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott took place on Sunday night. There's nothing more that I can say about the content. Really. The transcript is here.

Terrible. Old media at its worst. Innovative when Jack Kennedy met Dick Nixon fifty years ago. Here, a bad waste of an hour with two leaders who wanted to remain small policy targets, and with a panel too preoccupied with the distraction of the comparatively minor asylum seeker issue. The use of the worm (or in Channel Seven's case, three worms) served only to trivialise the event further.

For most Australian viewers, it was just a bad reality show filling time before the grand final of Masterchef began on Channel Ten. Or even, if you preferred, Dancing With The Stars on Seven. As it happened, Masterchef on Sunday was the highest rating Australian TV show in years, scoring well ahead of the combined viewership of the ABC, Seven and Nine coverages of the Debate yawnfest. Mumbrella has the night's viewing figures.

Why does the debate have to be on a Sunday night? (For Bob Hawke vs Andrew Peacock in 1984, it was on a Saturday.) Why does it require such starchy rules? And why, really, does it need to be restricted to Leader vs Leader?

Much more instructive was Monday night's edition of Q&A on ABC1 (Channel 2 in the old currency), chiefly focussing on discussion of climate change (still in my opinion the numero uno policy issue facing this nation) including key players such as Penny Wong, Malcolm Turnbull and Christine Milne. The Town Hall-style format of Q&A is great at its best, enhanced by input from questioners via video and the web. Though I would be only too happy if they could lose that Young Liberals cheer squad each week.

Could we, I wonder, have Abbott and Gillard do a Q&A together before the election? Even if the ABC is made to share it with the other networks?

Nine days in, and the 2010 election campaign is as dismal as any I've witnessed in the past four decades. Tony Abbott defies serious appraisal, while Julia Gillard's entire first month as Prime Minister has been a massive disappointment.

Both parties have bounced into this campaign like Spain and Holland playing the World Cup Final. Both sides playing with as little attacking flair as possible so as not to make mistakes and therefore lose. We have seen little in the first week in the way of policy announcement and what we have seen instills little in the way of confidence. Better, I think, to ignore election promises for now and try to second guess how each side will actually behave once the election is won.

For all the statements and non sequiteurs of Week One there could be possibly no greater disapointment than La Gillardine's approach to climate change policy. The warning signs were there in her announcement on July 17 of the election when she said:

"I will be having more to say about climate change during the campaign and what I can say very clearly and guarantee for you, that as we announce those policies, my policies, they will be policies coming from a person who believes climate change is real. Who believes it’s caused by human activity and who has never equivocated in that belief."

- press conference, Canberra, 17.7.10 (source: alp.org.au)

A statement as profound as saying "I believe in income tax."

And the following Friday, there came the announcement that a Gillard Government would form a Citizen's Assembly to "examine the evidence on climate change, the case for action and a market based approach to reducing pollution".

All the things that had been accepted as fact by both sides prior to the 2007 federal election. And guaranteeing, if implemented, that it would be at least 2012 or 2013 before we even start to do anything meaningful about combating climate change. Moving forward? Hello?

The Citizen's Assembly, apart from evoking images of Kevin Rudd's vapourware 2020 Summit, has been ridiculed from all sides, chiefly with the reminder that Australians are voting for their all-purpose citizen's assembly on August 21. Tony Abbott had his appearance on "Hey Hey It's Saturday" last, er, Wednesday. Julia Gillard's climate change policy reminds me of the title of an acclaimed radio comedy series from the land of both Tony Abbott's and Julia Gillard's birth, but sadly under-exposed in Australia: "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue".

"Thank you to those who arranged the Leaders debate to avoid clashing with the finale of Master chef."

- NSW attorney-general John Hatzistergos on Twitter, 21.7.10

With so many methods and opportunities for politicians to communicate with the public and interact with each other via the media, the Kennedy-Nixon style "Leaders Debate" is an anachronism. It certainly can't be done comprehensively in the timeframe of one hour-long session. But that's what we'll get next Sunday - at the special time of 6.30.

And why not in the traditional 60 Minutes Special Edition timeslot of 7.30pm? Because it will clash with the Live Grand Finale of Masterchef.

A federal election is the entree, what will be the main dish? (Allow me a quick look back at my preview of the 2009 Masterchef Australia grand final, which clashed with the Second Test of the Ashes.)

And how outraged is the voting public of South Australia (not to mention Channel Seven), where the Debate will now clash with the final quarter of the Adelaide Crows v Port Adelaide AFL local derby? Considering that no seats are predicted to change hands in that state on August 21, probably not much.

At least no one has suggested a Leaders Twitter Debate - certainly not after the debacle when one was attempted in NSW on June 16.

There are so many ways for politicians to interact with the public these days - as so brilliantly exploited by Kevin Rudd on Sunrise for several years. Alas, everything Tony Abbott is doing in this campaign seems to be coming straight out of the "How Not To Manual". Who on Earth advised him that it would be a good idea to appear on the (hopefully) last-ever Wednesday-night edition of "Hey Hey It's Saturday" as a guest judge on Red Faces? Alongside Kylie Minogue no less?

According to the ratings released this morning, the TAbbott edition of Hey Hey was watched by 1.174 million viewers. Less than half of Masterchef's 2.467 million, screening at the same time.

Having been a huge fan of the show on Saturday mornings in the 1970s, I switched out of Hey Hey in the mid-1980s when it went moved to 6.30pm, and became mainstream and smug. (Its "retirement" in 1999 was acknowledged by John Howard in a press release which I can no longer find online.) I haven't sat through any of its 21st century reincarnations, so allow me to leave the last word to Channel Ten's Hugh Riminton, who did watch last night's program:

"Sorry Folks, #heyhey was the saddest, most embarrassing piece of TV on our screens in many a year. Smart move, JG to stay clear"

If you consider the continuity errors in Tony Abbott's glib slogan proclaiming that Workchoices is "Dead. Buried. Cremated.", then maybe you are looking for an "Exhumed" to be inserted into that sequence - at least once, maybe more often. Abbott's serial non sequiteurs on the talk-radio circuit on Monday suggest that neo-liberal IR reform, whether named Workchoices or some other moniker, is not about to disappear from the tory agenda. Where's Freddy Krueger when you need him?

But while I continue to believe that any campaigning between now and August 21 is irrelevant, let me just add two more examples from Monday's eight-layered vanilla cake of electioneering delights.

Exhibit A: Bob Brown proudly proclaiming the support of the Adelaide Zoo pandas Funi and Wang Wang, Pulpo Paolo style, in endorsing the Greens.

And, umm, Exhibit B: A near-naked stalker harangued Abbott on the campaign trail at Knox City Shopping Centre. It transpired that it was a Victorian Labor office worker (albeit on leave and currently a volunteer campaigner, according to party apparatchchiks) trying to make a, er, point about Abbott in red Speedos. All that can be said is that he smuggles smaller budgies than the Opposition Leader.

And in late breaking election irrelevance, news hot off the Twitter that (a) Joe Hockey has name-checked The Bangles in a press conference, and (b) the Leaders Debate next Sunday night will be scheduled so as not to clash with the grand final of Masterchef.

"...today I seek my own mandate to move Australia forward.
...this election is about the choice as to whether we move Australia forward or go back. Our great nation, our very great nation, has been built by generations of men and women who had the courage to move forward.

Moving forward, of course, requires conviction, it requires confidence...

Moving forward with confidence also requires a strong set of convictions...

I will be asking Australians for their trust so that we can move forward together.

And moving forward means moving forward with plans to build a sustainable Australia...

Moving forward means moving forward with budget surpluses...
Moving forward also means moving forward with stronger protection of our borders...

...I believe this is a moment for all of us to strengthen, to innovate, to learn - in short, to move forwards, not backwards."

- Edited highlights of Julia Gillard's speech announcing the August 21 election, Canberra, 17.7.10

It's 48 hours since the Governor-General dissolved parliament and I'm sick and tired of this election campaign already. Prime Minister Gillard exuded a combination of charisma and Zhou Enlai as she gave her speech - one that her predecessor Kevin Rudd never had the opportunity to deliver. All that's worth remembering from a speech devoid of policy is the absurd number of times she talked about "moving forward" - and the above extract doesn't include them all!

Shortly afterwards, Tony Abbott gave a response that was more dork and [insert your favourite used car salesman's name here]. Again his speech can be distilled down to a few key elements:

"The election isn’t about glib slogans....

We’ll stand up for Australia. We’ll stand up for real action. We’ll end the waste, repay the debt, stop the new taxes and stop the boats."

(source: Liberal.org.au)

This election should have been a gimme for Labor. Rudd's increasingly dysfunctional leadership style didn't help, but the current ALP back office has to be one of the worst in modern times. Julia Gillard has been landed in an incredibly difficult position, and is a polished and highly professional operator, but goodness me she was given some drivel to recite on Saturday. If Labor botch this election then the primary blame will rest with their party machine.

The Liberal-National coalition should be in a state of irrelevance at this point, currently enjoying their third leader since the electoral demise of aspirant sports administrator John Howard. If Gillard is polished and professional, Abbott is off-the-cuff and, well, his credibility was dealt with fairly decisively at 7.30ReportLand on May 17. Yet, it is not beyond the realms of belief that he could be Prime Minister in around five weeks' time.

A lot will depend on how well the Libs can run their campaign. At this point, it's not looking good.

If ever there was an election I was willing to call as a 0-0 draw it's this one.

If all the rumours tonight are true, then tomorrow morning Australia's first female Prime Minister will pay a visit to Australia's first female Governor-General to prorogue Federal Parliament and call for a general election (including half-senate election) on either August 21 or August 28.

As in 2004 and 2007 I'll be blogging the election campaign from a personal viewpoint, though with the added dimension this time around of immediate comment on Twitter. The ground rules are similar to those previous campaigns, though with the absence of the John Howard bogey. It will be a personal exploration of the election as I attempt to explain in public who I am voting for in Grayndler in the lower house, and for New South Wales in the Senate, and my reasons thereof - and of my observations of the national campaigns at large.

No pretence of neutrality on my part, though I aspire for clear-headedness throughout. My voting intentions will be laid out in public, along with any changes in mind along the way if and when they occur. As in 2004 and 2007 I will detail my voting on the day, and will lay out the policies which matter to me and those that I believe should matter to the nation.

This story will kick off in earnest once Julia has had her morning cuppa with Quentin. Feel free to bookmark www.rickeyre.com/blog/auselection2010.

I was off-line and effectively incommunicado the night of June 23, 2010 and missed all the live coverage, twitterage and bloggage of the impending coup in Canberra that evening. By the time I learned that anything sinister was afoot - whilst checking the World Cup scores at about 6am next morning - Kevin Rudd's head was all but served up on the platter.

My view at the time and in the days following was one of total bewilderment. The knifing of Rudd by his Labor Party confreres was totally unnecessary and an act of panic in the face of opinion poll figures that were not as overwhelmingly supportive as before. There seemed little doubt to me that Rudd, despite some glaring faults in his personal management style, would win the coming federal election, and in any case was an infinitely better choice as Prime Minister than the bizarre Tony Abbott. Julia Gillard is someone I like and who I looked upon as having all the hallmarks of being a fine leader when her time was due to come around - and I was hoping this would be some time during the second term of the current Labor administration (ie between end 2010 and end 2013).

I felt it was madness to dump a Prime Minister who was popular with the people and still in his first term of office cleaning up the mess of four terms of a destructive conservative. But there is no doubt that there were many within the Labor Party who didn't like him and were nervously watching the opinion polls as if these were the only valid measurement of a nation's democracy.

There was no "spill", unlike past changes of leadership. This was a clinically executed coup, not by the military or by mass public demonstration, but by the back-room boys. Some the quiet backbenchers in federal parliament, some the ALP hatchet men looking forward to claiming their entitlement of a senate berth or safe house of reps seat to hold for just long enough till they can claim their parliamentary super.

The internal party coup of June 23-24 was a hit similar to the one performed on Mark Latham in early 2005 and on Kim Beazley in late 2006. And indeed, to those performed in New South Wales on Morris Iemma in late 2008 and on his successor Nathan Rees in December 2009. And, primarily, by the same people, most of whom are present or past occupants of the not-so-ivory tower in Sussex Street, Sydney known as NSW ALP headquarters.

Interesting then that leaders who are seen to underperform can be clinically despatched from office, but there is no such accountability for the party hacks who anoint leaders who subsequently fail to meet expectations. They just get to anoint the next leaders while they await their own inevitable senate pre-selection.

Kevin Rudd has every right to feel personally devastated, and it's a shame that we had to have this fact borne out in detail on national television on the morning of June 24. In balance, however, Rudd was a party hack himself, though not one of the usual trade union lineage. His breeding came via the Queensland ALP machine, especially as Chief of Staff to Wayne Goss between 1989 and 1995. The proverb "Be nice to people on the way up, because you'll pass them again on the way down" could have been prophetic for Kevin07.

He was a Prime Minister who did some good things - the Apology to the Stolen Generation was his finest moment without doubt - and the avoidance of a run on the banks in October 2008 was also a major achievement, the following "stimulus" strategies aggressive but messy in ways that are still unravelling. The passage of legislation for Paid Parental Leave in the past few weeks was another major achievement, as was the dismantling of most (not significantly not all) of the "Workchoices" IR package of the fourth Howard term.

In other ways he failed - the "2020 Summit" of April 2008 was superficially a good idea, but one which ultimately went nowhere. Perhaps government is not the best facilitator of such events, but even so what has ever come of the findings? Major reviews - that by Ross Garnaut on climate change, and by Ken Henry on tax reform - have been ignored or had their recommendations watered down to almost nothing. Some of the foul work of the Howard years has yet to be dismantled, noticably the Northern Territory "intervention". Rudd's government reviewed and increased the rates of age pension - but did nothing for the unemployed and the sick, thus creating a huge gap in welfare service delivery.

But the moment at which Rudd seems to have lost more of his base Labor constituency than any other was his abandonment this April of the Emissions Trading Scheme - and especially, his failure to put any other strategy in place to combat climate change. There seems little doubt that the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Change conference (COP 15) last December sapped much of his enthusiasm, as it did unfortunately for many other people worldwide. Rudd's leadership diminished in 2010, he was noticably more defensive and tetchy when pressed about his turning away from the assertation that climate change was "the great moral challenge of our time".

Rudd's performance as Prime Minister was on a downward curve by mid-2010, but was this enough reason to suddenly dump him from the role, or to fear that he would lose the federal election due later this year? No, but there were enough marginal seat-holders prepared to panic over their own jobs, and deep in the denizens of Labor groupthink, Rudd's time was deemed to be up.

We've had just over a fortnight now of Julia Gillard now as Prime Minister, and hasn't it been the moment that the Women's Weekly, Woman's Day and New Idea have been craving for years! To be fair, and in all seriousness, there was no more deserving deputy to take over the role of Prime Minister, and (so far as we know) there was no driving personal motive on her part involved in the overthrow of her predecessor. She has found herself placed in an extraordinary situation, with a federal election to be called sometime in the next few months (and perhaps any time now she wishes) and to deal with some messy policy issues (mining resource tax and the vastly over-blown "asylum seeker" matter being two of them) beforehand. This is the moment for someone with the skill, guile and middle-ground popularity of a 1983 Bob Hawke.

Her handling to this point of "asylum seeker" policy - replacing the Nauru and Manus Island of the John Howard years with Timor Leste, despite not properly consulting its government before making any announcements - is disquieting. If she were to lose the next election it would be a result the Labor Party back room would totally deserve. But would Australia as a whole deserve to be the collateral damage which would eventuate from a tory government under the prime ministership of Tony Abbott?

Following last December's stunning revelation of graphic footage of a coconut-carrying octopus comes the news that an Oberhausen cephalopod by the name of Paul has correctly predicted the outcome of every match Germany has played in the current FIFA World Cup. Including their semi-final loss to Spain this morning, of which El Pais reported, "El pulpo acertó."

This video report from Associated Press:

Yesterday was the 234th anniversary of the collective breakaway of thirteen British colonies from King George III's empire. On New York's Coney Island they know how to celebrate. With the help of that responsible sporting powerhouse Major League Eating.

Showing the world that Binge Eating Is OK, the self-styled Worldwide Leader in Sports, ESPN, televised the annual Independence Day hot-dog eating championship, won for the fourth time by one Joey Chestnut, with 54 dogs scoffed in ten minutes.

But the real fun, it seems, came when Japanese eating champion Takeru Kobayashi crashed the event and was arrested by police, having refused to sign a MLE contract to take part.

Associated Press takes up the story. For the time being, here (after an ad) is an ESPNews report with highlights of the telecast. America, you are so beautiful.