Teresa Gambaro’s moment in the sun was as brief as it was ripe, and we actually have our first solid policy issue of the year only halfway through January, and with the Slipper in place, it looks like it’s going to be a year of realpolitik from the P.M.

Andrew Wilkie up to second as the forces against poker machine reform felt more and more comfortable after Julia Gillard’s pointed refusal to reaffirm her support of mandatory pre-commitment, with Wilkie himself seeming to accede that his reforms will be watered down – if they get through Parliament at all. Nick Xenophon has moved to the dollar limit idea, which of course would be even worse for the pubs and clubs, so not much chance of Labor agreeing to that.

Still no-one’s mounted a High Court challenge to pokies as a private form of taxation and therefore illegal. Might as well have a crack.

Anna Bligh is facing a mighty tough election campaign but was not talking about dates on the weekend. Instead she was joined by Kevin Rudd at a fundraiser memorial for Queensland flood victims and survivors and launched a social media app to aid preparedness for future natural disasters.

Meanwhile WA Labor leader Eric Ripper is finally shuffling off after three years of dismal polls and repeated attacks from his own side, with Mark McGowan set to take his place.

Abbott might not be making headlines in news media coverage, but social media coverage is still high for the opposition leader. There was Twitter chatter about the first poll of 2012 showing Gillard is preferred PM over Abbott. And Pokie reform tends to get talkback coverage fired up, so no surprise to see Wilkie in the top five this week.

He’s been described as having the grace of a giraffe on rollerblades, but Tomic is proving himself in the tennis world winning the Kooyong Classic and starting well in the Australian Open.