Just four days down and the candidates continue to burn up the jet fuel. It’s been a campaigning frenzy, with both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott keen to visit the key battlegrounds in the first week. So far the Moving Forward Brigade have notched up 5,223 km, while the Real Action Squad are languishing on 4,179 km. Together that’s a combined 9,402 kilometres — or 46,737 furlongs in the old money.

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The big news from yesterday was the Opposition Leader’s appearance on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (at the expense of an interview with an obviously disdainful Kerry O’Brien). Here’s the good oil on day 4:

Gillard:

  • Julia Gillard was back in western Sydney where she announced 50,000 work experience places for students undertaking a national trades cadetship. JG spruiked the initiative at a car dealership: “Just met with apprentices from the Apprentice Kickstart Scheme at Trivett Honda in Blacktown. Australia needs more apprentices,” she said via Twitter.
  • Team Moving Forward’s media minders then let JG off the leash as she took her first street walk in Anthony Albanese’s safe seat of Grayndler. According to the ABC, there were no big surprises during the brief foray, however one woman did tell Gillard that she had “stuffed up” on asylum seekers.

Abbott:

  • Tony Abbott was in Victorian Point in Queensland where he pledged an increase to the education tax rebate. Under the Coalition, the spending limit will be lifted to $1000 for primary schools students and $2000 for high school students. Said Abbott: “We’ll pay more, it will cover more, and it will start sooner than is the case with the government’s rebate.” The announcement came a day after the Coalition pledged $1.2bn in spending cuts.
  • Abbott then flew down to Melbourne for a whistle-stop visit to the set of Hey Hey It’s Saturday, where he joined the show to judge the Red Faces segment, including a band of dancing dogs.

Rudd:

  • Kevin Rudd finally came out of the woodwork, as he hit the campaign trail at Cooparoo State School in his electorate of Griffith. The former PM was in no mood to take questions from the gathered press pack, preferring to chat with staff and students. Meanwhile, the LNP candidate running in Griffith claims Rudd will quit parliament when he gets a decent foreign job offer.

Any giant novelty cheques?

  • Abbott’s appearance on Hey Hey It’s Saturday is surely the stunt of the campaign so far. If you haven’t seen the footage, do yourself a favour. It was a special piece of television.

How about stuff ups?

  • While Crikey is not one to point fingers when it comes to spelling, we couldn’t resist when we saw that the Coalition’s education tax rebate policy contained an unfortunate spelling mistake. Crikey is still unsure whether the slip-up is simply an embarrassing typo (we know all about those) or indisputable evidence of “moving forward” overload:

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Quotable:

  • Tony’s appearance on Hey Hey is the gift that keeps on giving. While the segment was mostly forgettable, there was one zinger from the Mad Monk during a contestant’s country song about incest: “I quite like the Julia Gillard accent,” he quipped.

Where are they moving today?

  • The campaign will be put on hold for the two main candidates today as Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott attend the funeral of Private Nathan Bewes in Murwillumbah, New South Wales. Gillard, Abbott and Bob Brown are staying off the campaign trail as a mark of respect, however senior ministers and their counterparts will still be out and about.

What is the tracker?

Crikey tracks each leader’s amazing race across the country via our Election Tracker. Each day we’ll plot the leaders’ movements, feeding in the key policy announcements and spending commitments, the best media coverage and social media chat, plus the campaign stunts and bloopers. You can also use the tracker as a hub for the best Crikey coverage.

Click on the tabs across the top to watch how many kilometres Gillard and Abbott have clocked up, the movements of other key players and finally our bloopers and stunts bonanza on the right. You can click on each stop to see what they’re up to, with links to extended coverage and detailed electorate information.