Rudd shakes his way to the top

As much of the media have gleefully noted, after that many shakes of the sauce bottle he must be as dry as a dead dingo’s … but he’s getting plenty of coverage nevertheless, the PM back over the 20,000 mark and way ahead of that other bloke who got a bit of a look in every now and then back when we thought we were in a recession — he drops to third.

And a keen lesson for all those aspiring young pollies: never actually DO anything about FoI laws or you’ll find yourself dumped in Defence quicksmart. It was a mistake never even contemplated during the Howard years and some in the media have suggested it’s not one that Senator Ludwig is likely to repeat.

The rest of the big movers unsurprisingly also related to the reshuffle, with Greg Combet and Mark Arbib making very rare appearances, while the solar rebate snafu also pushed Peter Garrett up the list.

The five most powerful politicians in Australia? Well perhaps insert Julia for Nathan and you’d have to be close. Who says talkback callers don’t know what’s going on?

Interestingly relatively little coverage on commercial telly compared to radio — some outlets obviously still sticking to the “never mention the competition” rule.

There’s more on the Media Monitors website.