By ABC's Annabel Crabb
Photo: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Tony Abbott shake hands before a debate. (AAP: Lukas Coch)
The third leaders' debate painted a good picture of what the two party leaders have on offer. With Tony Abbott, you always get the same lines but with Kevin Rudd it's the luck of the draw, writes Annabel Crabb.
Ah, Rooty Hill. Wedged firmly into Labor's Axis of Anxiety in Sydney's western suburbs, it borders seats like Lindsay and Greenway, Labor-held by margins that would be eminently survivable blood-alcohol levels.
This is an area that has killed before; at the 2011 state election, the local electorate fielded an 18 per cent swing against Labor.
When Julia Gillard came a-calling here in March, she was hastened to a sticky end.
She debated Tony Abbott here too, three years ago, back when Labor's talk was of a cash-for-clunkers scheme and Tony Abbott's was of stopping the boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.
Last night, his talk was of stopping boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.
This is Campaign Tony: The same thing every day, for years on end, with only the odd campaign howler to relieve the monotony.
(Last night's was an awkward reference by the Opposition Leader to his "modest" superannuation assets, a term which - after distinct scoffing from the crowd - he was forced hastily to admit applied only to his pre-parliamentary super.)
Even the paid parental leave scheme, a Tonyism that colleagues prayed fervently would be forgotten, abandoned or quietly strangled during some lonely stretch on the Pollie Pedal, is there again this election, unchanged, with its brain-hurting algorithm of tax hikes and cuts.
It's baffling in many ways that this creation would become Tony Abbott's calling-card, this scheme which was described by one Rooty Hill questioner last night as a device by which Mt Druitt forklift drivers would be fleeced so that "pretty little lawyers on the North Shore" could have their babies underwritten by the state.
It may be baffling, but it doesn't seem to be changing, and Mr Abbott cheerfully defended it against all comers last night, as he always does.
No matter where you are on this election campaign, you always get the same Tony Abbott, and you always get the same lines.
But where the Prime Minister is concerned, it's the luck of the draw.
Last night there were flashes of 2007 Kevin, as - asked by Mr Abbott to give some positive reasons for a Labor vote - the Prime Minister listed schools, hospitals and fast broadband before cheekily offering his famously bruised handshake hand to seal the deal.
There was 2008 Kevin, reliving at length the dilemmas presented by the Global Financial Crisis.
And - towards the end of last night's encounter - there was Nationalist Kevin, who declared himself "a bit nervous… a bit anxious, frankly" about sales of Australian land to foreign investors. He declared himself to be in support of a "more cautious approach" on foreign investment.
Having also recently visited a growers' market and heard tales of the Coles/Woolworths duopoly, he declared himself "very worried about that, big-time," and promised to have a think about ways to help.
"That is a deep response and feeling I have to what's going on out there," he declared.
Foreign investment and the supermarket duopoly are pure Katter-nip, of course, and there were plenty of observers last night who swore they could see the ghostly aura of a hat hovering over the Prime Minister's saintly fringe.
Later, in response to a lady who wanted earlier access to her superannuation funds, Mr Rudd all but promised to look into it.
At every turn during this campaign, the Prime Minister has offered up the phantoms of future Kevins; the things he might offer, given 10 years, given the right circumstances. He could change to please you; That's Kevin's pitch.
Tony won't: That's his.
Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.
Leaders' debate paints some pretty little pitches - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
