That the importance of occupational health and safety in the work place relations debate is not seen as a subject of importance by the national press is hardly the fault of Julia Gillard.

Labor’s deputy leader and shadow Minister for Industrial Relations was hard at work yesterday telling the Victorian Division of the Safety Institute of Australia all about it but I did not notice her on the television news or read any of her words of wisdom in their morning’s newspapers.

Which proves that Ms Gillard is developing into a very good politician – one who can avoid publicity when it is not needed while being out and about enough to avoid being called lazy.

Have a look at these figures from our regular Tuesday Top 20 feature.

Industrial relations remains a big plus for Labor with less than four months to go until election day. The multi-millions being spent by the business community on an advertising campaign are preaching only to the converted.

The nice woman fronting the government advertisements might look reassuring but there must be a lot of employers doing horrid things to workers with these AWA things if the government has got to warn us how to protect our rights.

What Labor needs most is to avoid getting stuck in a boring debate about the details of what in fact proposes. Let the negatives about the current law be the subject matter rather than a consideration of the impact Labor’s roll back might have on future economic growth.

And by carefully controlling her tongue, Julia Gillard is achieving that very well. Just occasionally she sees an opportunity and takes it, as she did yesterday with a press statement gently chiding the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, headed by life time Liberal and ex-Peter Reith staffer, Peter Hendy, for wanting the Howard Government to go further in stripping workers’ rights and entitlements.

If she keeps up the good silent work she will have done more than her share in helping Labor to victory.