Last week the Government claimed PR people told Labor leader Kevin Rudd what to do – a dig at Hawker Britton, presumably.

This week he’s “a phoney”, or so senior government ministers say. The PM swore this morning as he rolled out the barrel in Eden-Monaro that he’s never gone for American style campaign rallies – or even used an autocue – unlike the Labor leader.

“The more people see and hear of this man, the more obvious it is that he is a phoney,” Tony Abbott claimed in Question Time yesterday, but it was attack poodle Alexander Downer who had the most detail.

“What a phoney, what a phoney. I mean that really is pathetic. It is about time you people savagely turned on him,” the Foreign Minister said of the Labor leader when asked about the ALP’s proposals for campaign debates.

“The Leader of the Opposition – and this is characteristic of him – wants a stunt,” he added in Question Time yesterday. “He wants something to say. He wants to get a run in the media.

“So what does he do? He says that he would establish an authority. Let it be repeated that this particular stunt adds to the 67 new departments, committees, boards and councils that the Leader of the Opposition wants to establish, which is on top of the 96 bureaucratic audits and reviews.”

Well, of course Kevin will look into it. Wouldn’t you?

He has people like Julia Gillard, Nicola Roxon and Kim Il Carr on his frontbench. You wouldn’t leave decision making up to them.