Leaders to take off the gloves in race for Canberra

CANBERRA - The dramatic contraction in the latest opinion polls that has seen the Government's lead vanish in the past week has forced Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition leader Tony Abbott toe-to-toe in a new, barefisted brawl for the August 21 election.

While it is Gillard who has promised to shed her manufactured image and unleash her "real self" on voters - Abbott is still trying to keep his tongue in check - both sides are moving to a more aggressive attack strategy.

Campaigns usually become tougher and more brutal as voting approaches, but the latest Nielsen and Newspoll results showing the Opposition is now running even with Labor in the two-party preferred vote that determines elections has injected more fury into the battle.

Gillard's road has been pockmarked by the series of leaks from high within her own party alleging a broken deal with ousted Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, failures by both Rudd and Gillard to attend meetings of the Cabinet's national security committee and claims that Gillard had opposed higher pensions and Labor's paid parental leave scheme.

Yesterday the Australian Financial Review reported she had announced her unpopular climate change policy without consulting Cabinet colleagues.

Abbott has been able to stand aside and watch Labor implode, although he was embarrassed by attacks by former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on a hospitalised Kevin Rudd at the weekend - including the use of obscene language - and was forced to apologise for his own dismissal of problems of access for the disabled as "waffle".

While Gillard remained preferred prime minister in both polls, Nielsen and Newspoll have rocked the campaign by disclosing the ground the Government has lost since Gillard's post-coup honeymoon.

The Fairfax/Nielsen poll put the Coalition ahead by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, with a swing sufficient to easily hand Abbott power.

Yesterday's Newspoll in the Australian put the Government and Opposition on a 50-50 footing, confirming that Gillard cannot win without the preferences of Greens voters.

The Australian said Labor's primary vote was now further behind the Coalition than it was the weekend before Rudd was deposed, further weakening its two-party position.

Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek conceded: "There is a serious possibility that Tony Abbott will be the prime minister of Australia."

Gillard's response was to publicly disown her earlier strategy of a carefully crafted, softer image that had stage-managed the campaign into banality.

"I do believe people are right to worry that modern campaigning is too managed and too tightly scripted," she told the Herald Sun. "I think it's time to make sure that the real Julia is well and truly on display."

Gillard has shown a robust and aggressive style in parliamentary debate and in handling earlier problems within her various portfolios, and unleashed a taste of steel in defending her position on parental leave and pensions last week.

Abbott said that Gillard's change in tactics reflected the power of the factions that had pushed her to power: "What I hope is happening over this election is that the real nature of the Government is being exposed."

But Abbott has also been on a tight leash, which he conceded to Channel Nine was becoming harder to maintain and slipped yesterday with his gaffe on disabled access to public buildings.

Labor will be hoping for a return of the motor-mouth who, during the 2007 election campaign, bullied now-Health Minister Nicola Roxon on national TV and accused her of "bullshit".

But neither approach will be spontaneous. The campaigns will be closely monitored and managed from the opposing headquarters in Melbourne and Sydney, backed by new and increasingly sharp attack advertising.

Labor is targeting Abbott, distributing compromising quotes from the past on subjects ranging from climate change to pensions and abortion, and running new advertisements warning of cuts to health, education and other services if the Coalition wins power.

Responding to Coalition complaints of dirty tricks, Gillard snapped: "If he's embarrassed by [his own words] then, well, that's too bad."

The Liberals are hitting back with a campaign depicting Labor as a train wreck, and through advertisements portraying Gillard and senior ministers as lemons.

The advertisements aim an extra blow at the ousting of Rudd by cleaving a lemon look-alike in two and asking: "Remember how shocked you were when Kevin O'Lemon got the chop?"

On the flanks, angry miners have a new anti-Government campaign warning every household will be "whacked" by Labor's resource rental tax.

Unions are returning fire with advertisements parodying the miners as billionaires worried at the cost of caviar and maintaining yachts, while Gillard "fritters" money away on hospitals, schools and roads.

Soundbites

* Canberra Times columnist Jack Waterford, warning on ABC radio that we have yet to see the real Opposition Leader this campaign: "Tony Abbott is a naughty boy who can't stop playing with matches."

* Greens Leader Bob Brown on Julia Gillard's campaign style: "I think she has been far too restrained, she's allowed herself to be hemmed in and I think she should be more adventurous."

* Alice Springs voter Jack Leuthard, on news.com.au: "Only one thing is for sure in this election, or any election for that matter - we get what we deserve."

* Former Liberal Leader Malcolm Turnbull, himself ousted by a coup, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald about Labor counterpart Kevin Rudd: "Someone should give this poor bastard a hug."

* Perth voter, telling ABC radio why he will vote for Gillard: "I reckon women are better organisers than men just quietly. Ever seen them organise a wedding? Hey, I mean, guys can't do that."

* The Daily Telegraph's Paul Kent, on the first major campaign appearance by the Environment Minister: "He looked like Peter Garrett and he walked like Peter Garrett, and if someone had struck up the band he might have even danced like Peter Garrett."