So the Prime Minister is off to Rooty Hill’s bustling pokies dens — the self-styled “Vegas of Sydney’s west” — where (as we exclusively report today) the wagyu beef steak comes highly recommended and the headlines, blessedly, write themselves.

Today, Tony Abbott — the Rhodes Scholar from Sydney’s northern shore — arrives in the central Queensland metropolis of Rockhampton, home of nothing much in particular except the giant cement bull that greets visitors at the town limits (the one crafty locals keep castrating).

Not that we’re in an election campaign …

But never let it be said our leaders aren’t prepared to press sweaty flesh outside their comfort zones. These two are doing the hard yards for the good of their cause. Still, only seven months to go.