Media Monitor’s Top 20 this week has Brendan Nelson managing a bare third of Cate’s Mate, but Julia Gillard has been displaced by Morris Iemma, whose efforts at trashing the ALP brand in NSW for a generation have earned him third spot.

Zimbabwe and the Olympics have rocketed the suave Stephen Smith – the other man to wear a tie to the summit – into fifth. Poor Julie Bishop trails both Peter “hunt’n’peck” Costello and Australia’s youngest monarchist, Alexander Downer, as well as M Turnbull, phoning in from New York to snare sixth.

But the biggest mover is Maxine McKew, swooping from nowhere into 17th, ahead of even Nats leader Warren “why is there no-one from Gippsland in this list” Truss. And no, we don’t know how she got there, except possibly by telling the Governance gang at the summit that they didn’t have any big ideas. Old journalist habits die hard.

TW

Move

Position

Politician

Press

Radio

TV

Internet

Total

1

0

PM

Kevin Rudd

1,720

11,007

6,964

14,283

33,974

2

0

Opp Leader

Brendan Nelson

372

2,783

2,464

4,960

10,579

3

2

Premier

Morris Iemma

255

2,302

716

2,915

6,188

4

-1

Cabinet

Julia Gillard

258

1,077

267

2,919

4,521

5

24

Cabinet

Stephen Smith

89

694

541

1,919

3,243

6

3

Shadow

Malcolm Turnbull

95

1,167

395

1,406

3,063

7

14

Cabinet

Peter Garrett

177

1,452

726

686

3,041

8

-4

Cabinet

Wayne Swan

215

658

207

1,884

2,964

9

-2

Premier

Anna Bligh

293

1,143

231

1,187

2,854

10

7

Backbench

Peter Costello

80

1239

391

1047

2,757

11

-5

Premier

John Brumby

133

887

171

1,168

2,359

12

-4

Cabinet

Nicola Roxon

124

762

91

1,118

2,095

13

7

Backbench

Alexander Downer

57

410

268

920

1,655

14

-4

Cabinet

Penny Wong

67

214

156

787

1,224

15

3

Premier

Mike Rann

97

548

21

492

1,158

16

-2

Cabinet

Stephen Conroy

76

273

4

728

1,081

17

27

Parl Sec

Maxine McKew

105

502

271

192

1,070

18

9

Shadow

Julie Bishop

68

294

129

466

957

19

4

Premier

Alan Carpenter

106

445

24

275

850

20

-1

Party leader

Warren Truss

15

253

56

434

758

Talkback Top Five

It’s all Kevin, all the time.

Rank

Politician

Talkback

1

Kevin Rudd

869

2

Morris Iemma

65

3

Brendan Nelson

60

4

Julia Gillard

55

5

Malcolm Turnbull

53

And our celebrity control sample of the week: Blanchett big, Hugh not so huge.

Cate Blanchett

184

947

1,598

739

3,468

  Hugh Jackman

84

270

405

604

1,363

There’s more on the Media Monitors website.