More than once since seizing power less than four weeks ago, Ms Gillard has commented on the need to obtain a mandate from the people. To her credit, she has wasted little time in putting her leadership to the test. She has gone to the polls knowing Labor will have the hardest of fights to carry an election that should never have been the Coalition's to win.

On its record, this Labor government has not done enough to win resounding endorsement. The policies it has messed up are there for all to see. The deaths and shoddy work that flowed from the roof insulation debacle, the cost blowouts of the schools building program and the clumsy tax fight with the mining industry showed the Rudd government lacked the political ability to convert aims and ideas into coherent policy.

But perhaps most damaging of all was Mr Rudd's move to delay a decision on carbon trading, having previously described climate change as the greatest moral issue of our time. This confused the electorate, and while Ms Gillard has promised a new climate change policy, her short track record as PM has been less than sure-footed. Failing to properly consult with East Timor before roping the island nation into Labor's new refugee policy was a miscalculation that flew in the face of her pledge to get the detail right.

But for all Labor's shortcomings, the Coalition is almost certainly wrong when it says the resource industry, and not the government, saved Australia's bacon during the financial crisis of 2008. Some of the spending has undoubtedly gone awry but there is little doubt the government's fiscal stimulus and bank guarantees played crucial roles in helping Australia cope far better than Close outcome

In the Hunter, most of the attention will be focused on the marginal seat of Paterson. A redistribution means sitting Liberal member Bob Baldwin is protecting a very narrow margin but Labor's Jim Arneham will have to fight hard to knock him off.