The Crikey/Media Monitors Tuesday Top 20 for the week of 25 September – 1 October is all much of a muchness – very suitable for a phoney election campaign.

The focus on failures in the NSW public health system has pushed Tony Abbott up to Number Three third and warded the sixth position to the articulate and charismatic Morris Iemma.

Water wars have put South Australian Premier Mike Rann into the charts, too, as the tussle between Victoria and its downriver cousins over allocations from the Murray gets nastier.

TW

Move

Type

Politician

Press

Radio

Television

Internet

Grand Total

1

0

Federal

John Howard

1,393

6,453

3,127

9,980

20,953

2

1

Federal

Kevin Rudd

1,035

4,446

2,026

5,710

13,217

3

5

Federal

Tony Abbott

214

2,217

1,280

1,203

4,914

4

-2

Federal

Peter Costello

437

847

701

2,915

4,900

5

1

Federal

Alexander Downer

214

1,499

611

2,444

4,768

6

5

State

Morris Iemma

283

1,954

565

1,600

4,402

7

-3

Federal

Anna Bligh

196

1,266

934

1,699

4,095

8

-1

Federal

Malcolm Turnbull

248

1,209

430

1,581

3,468

9

0

Federal

Julia Gillard

203

953

604

1,401

3,161

10

0

Federal

Joe Hockey

227

1,191

318

1,139

2,875

11

2

State

John Brumby

171

1,078

395

932

2,576

12

3

Federal

Wayne Swan

205

1,252

596

513

2,566

13

-1

Federal

Peter McGauran

95

780

159

1,053

2,087

14

0

Federal

Kevin Andrews

88

795

359

659

1,901

15

5

Federal

Mark Vaile

99

547

247

651

1,544

16

3

Federal

Helen Coonan

88

560

290

481

1,419

17

8

State

Mike Rann

175

524

96

536

1,331

18

3

Federal

Peter Garrett

130

232

135

637

1,134

19

3

Federal

Mal Brough

58

564

18

471

1,111

20

-2

Federal

Brendan Nelson

59

359

97

539

1,054

The NSW hospitals issue dominated talkback during the week, pushing Kevin07 into the No.4 position.

Rank

Politician

Talkback

1

John Howard

536

2

Morris Iemma

304

3

Tony Abbott

167

4

Kevin Rudd

145

5

Anna Bligh

62

And with the focus on failure in healthcare, how did other failures perform this week? Well, here are the figures for a truly catastrophic failure, Britney:

Britney Spears

92

127

683

548

1,450