A Cabinet leak added to the Prime Minister’s woes, with much of the media taking it as a sign of imminent collapse, or at least a further strong sign of decay, with the polling during the week actually slightly better for the ALP but still very poor for the PM (and not much better for Tony Abbott, but no-one’s too worried about that).

Criticism of Julia Gillard’s tactics on the offshore processing legislation was heavy and widespread, the only silver lining may have been Kevin Rudd dropping back to third on the list.

Chris Bowen and Tony Crook leap up the list thanks to the focus on those asylum seeker tactics and the Cabinet leak, while Sarah Hanson Young and Bob Brown leapt up the list thanks to another leak of sorts, the Federal Ombudsman coming under intense pressure after giving Hanson Young questions to ask him at a Senate Estimates meeting.

By Tuesday the focus was finally turning to another issue, plans for the extension of the NT intervention giving Jenny Macklin a rare visit to the Top 20, while Mike Rann’s (some would say slightly self-indulgent) slow wave goodbye continued.

While Julia Gillard cops it from all sides in traditional media, Tony Abbott continues to be the more favoured punching bag online, with Tweets such as “Abbott acting like a kid threatening to wreck the joint unless we give him the top job.”

Barry O’Farrell joined the top five this week, with some online comments about accusing him of creating a boys club.

About as popular as the PM at the moment, Quade was poor all tournament, although the loss to the All Blacks involved all 15 of ours being outplayed by theirs.