By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney 23 Aug 2013

Kevin Rudd, Australia's prime minister, has made the basic campaign gaffe of appearing against a backdrop of pictures of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini at a school in Sydney.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spoke to students at Bede Polding College with posters of Hitler, Mussolini, Rommel and Einsenhower on the wall in Bligh Park in Sydney Photo: ANDREW MEARES/SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

The posters of dictators and other Second World War leaders were part of the school's project on war history but were evidently not spotted in time by Mr Rudd's advance campaign team.

"Don't mention ze poster," declared the headline at news.com.au, while the Sydney Morning Herald said: "It was the sort of disastrous photo opportunity that political advance parties are supposed to do everything to avoid".

The somewhat ominous backdrop came at an unfortunate time for Mr Rudd, who has long faced concerns about his own dictatorial leadership style and fiery temper. He was ousted by Julia Gillard during his first term as prime minister in 2010 and openly accused by senior ministers of being a traitor to Labor values and "a psychopath with a giant ego".

Earlier in the day, he was labelled "Mr Rude" on the front-page of Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper after being accused of acting poorly towards the woman who did his make-up before a televised debate this week.

Mr Rudd is trailing the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, in the polls and faces a seemingly impossible battle to win the Australian election on September 7. A Fairfax poll, to be published tomorrow, shows Mr Abbott's Liberal-National coalition has stretched its lead to 53 to 47 per cent against Mr Rudd's Labor party.

But the prime minister has not given up the fight.

"We entered this election campaign as underdogs," he told Channel Nine. "We have just under two-and-a-half weeks to go in this campaign ... and I intend to take the argument up."

Mr Abbott, a London-born former boxer and volunteer surf lifesaver, spent the morning doing a session of basic training with elite soldiers in the Northern Territory.

"If I'm bent over double for the next few days of the campaign, you'll know why," he said.

The soldiers were reportedly impressed, though Fairfax Media noted that "the Vladimir Putin-type vigour clearly took it out of the 55-year-old".

Mr Abbott has been ridiculed for plans to spend £12 million buying ramshackle fishing boats in Indonesian villages to ensure they are not used to bring boat people to Australia.

Labor described the plan as “a maritime version of cash for clunkers”, saying Mr Abbott would need to buy more than 726,000 vessels for the plan to have an impact in thwarting people smugglers.

“Indonesia is an archipelago,” said Tony Burke, the immigration minister. “Indonesia has one of the biggest fishing fleets in the world.”

Mr Burke said the money would merely boost the shipbuilding industry in Indonesia.

But Mr Abbott said it was a “common sense” plan and that spending a few thousand dollars in Indonesia would save millions of dollars in processing the asylum seekers’ applications in Australia.

Kevin Rudd commits political gaffe as he is pictured in front of Hitler - Telegraph