KEY POINTS:
The early part of 1975 saw the electoral nadir of the Whitlam Labor Government. Queensland was the state where Labor was faring worst. Into this strode Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, invited to kick off for a representative rugby league match at Lang Park, now Suncorp Stadium.
Whitlam had been invited by parliamentary colleague Senator Ron McAuliffe, a legendary figure in the Queensland Labor Party and nicknamed "Rugby Ron". McAuliffe was chairman of the Queensland Rugby League.
Almost every Australian knew that Whitlam was less than impressed by football, but dutifully he strode to the centre of the ground and ceremonially kicked off.
The trouble started as he and McAuliffe left the field. A cacophony of boos, jeers and catcalls accompanied Whitlam's departure and a shower of beer bottles and cans rained down.
Whitlam was unfazed. Turning to McAuliffe, he declared: "Senator, if I had known that you were this unpopular in your home state I would never have accepted your invitation to be here."
This was vintage Whitlam and has entered folklore. Unfortunately, the 2007 campaign is yet to produce a moment of similar wit - although we have had the extraordinary finding that 16 per cent of Australians surveyed wanted to see John Howard naked. And there is Kevin Rudd's YouTube performance of the "ear-to-mouth incident". But there is still a week to go.
Stealing an opponent's clothes is as old as the Commonwealth but it has reached a new intensity in this campaign. Opposition leader Rudd has pursued a deliberate strategy of minimising the differences between the two parties. As a consequence, the Coalition continually accuses Labor of "me tooism".
This usually involves claims that Labor is merely matching a Howard Government commitment. The Coalition is promising A$34 billion ($40 billion) in tax cuts, with the Labor response pegged at A$31 billion, the remaining money to be spent on education and health.
But the Government has sometimes been guilty of stealing policies from Labor. Infrastructure spending in greater Sydney, announced by the Coalition a couple of weeks ago, included A$2 billion for a motorway link between the M2, M7 and F3 parts of the national highway leading to Newcastle. This was strikingly similar to proposals announced by Rudd much earlier in the year.
The difficulty for the Coalition is that the punters seem to like the fact that Labor does not oppose the Howard Government on everything. The poll results speak for themselves, with Labor still comfortably in front.
But the focus groups suggest clearly what some politicians have always suspected - that a degree of bipartisanship is welcome. Synthetic opposition for the sake of opposition gets the thumbs down.
Labor is concentrating on the issues on which the Opposition knows it can win: Iraq, climate change, broadband, health and education. Beyond these issues lies WorkChoices.
If the Howard Government is buried by the voters on November 24, its corpse will be found to have WorkChoices branded on its chest.
So this election is characterised by remarkable similarities in much of what the major parties have on offer.
This phenomenon actually produced a return to public life for former Labor leader Mark Latham, who argued in the Australian Financial Review that this was a Seinfeld election, suggesting a show about nothing.
Labor analysts, including this writer, were quick to point out that Latham's criticism of his old party could only bolster the Rudd campaign. But there are two other elements which distinguish this general election from others.
The second distinguishing feature is the remorselessly negative tone of the campaign. Attack ads dominate the airwaves.
For the Coalition, it's a depiction of the Labor frontbench as "anti-business" trade unionists. The conservative parties' rhetoric on the campaign stump sometimes borders on the vitriolic, with Labor routinely being denounced as being dominated by union bosses and bully boys.
Turning the coin over, Labor has focused relentlessly on WorkChoices, drawing on comments from Senator Nick Minchin (Finance Minister) and Treasurer Peter Costello to claim that a fifth Howard-Costello Government would take WorkChoices to greater extremes.
Sections of the electorate seem genuinely worried, alternatively by trade union influence or by WorkChoices arriving in a third and final wave. Both sides deny scare campaigns. The electorate, however, has taken note.
A great many people decry negative advertising. The salient reality about attack ads however, as American and Australian experience suggests, is that they are extraordinarily effective in cutting through the clutter and making the point. They confirm and shift votes.
The spend on all this assault advertising will break records. Both parties have raised money furiously and are spending with determination.
The funding returns to the Australian Electoral Commission will make very interesting reading in several months' time.
The Sydney Morning Herald is running an online game it calls Scum Bag 07, based on an old but devastating Paul Keating line in the House of Representatives. The game challenges players to be more insulting than their opponents.
The nature of the game can best be summarised in the Sydney Morning Herald's own promotion: Test your reflexes against the current Australian land-speed insult titleholder Gough Whitlam, who took gold when he responded to Sir Winton Turnbull's declaration, "I am a Country Member" with the immortal retort, "We remember".
At least Whitlam's barbed response had wit about it. For the final distinguishing feature is the absence of humour.
Most Australian election campaigns produce a line which achieves legendary status.
In 1983, Malcolm Fraser charged that if a Hawke Labor Government were elected, pensioners would find their savings more secure under their beds than in bank accounts. Hawke immediately shot back, saying that pensioners could not place their savings under the bed because that's "where the Commies were".
This response simply demolished Fraser's assault. Politicians are far more circumspect now and perhaps for good reason.
Costello has a cutting edge, which he routinely displays to the entertainment of the government backbench at question time. Wickedly, he likened Rudd's meeting with colourful former West Australia Premier Brian Burke to a scene from Muriel's Wedding, where the Porpoise Spit councillor kept bumping into his mistress. But Costello, among others, has been burned by elements of the media.
The traditional off-the-record remark has largely disappeared from Australian politics. Both sides have been damaged.
Peter Garrett joked with a journalist in a Melbourne Airport lounge about changing policy positions after being elected and Costello was claimed to have assured a Melbourne radio announcer, clearly off the record, that interest rates were not going to rise.
Under traditional circumstances, neither remark would ever have been reported. This time, jokes are far too dangerous even to contemplate.
The Coalition and Labor have now launched their official platforms for November 24. Both launches took place in Brisbane, one of the critical battlegrounds. Labor remains comfortably ahead by about 10 points according to the polls, but no Australian election is ever concluded until the final West Australian booth closes.
With a week to go, we are yet to see a Lang Park moment. The odds are against this happening. Politicians are now punished for throwaway lines and the penalties for a joke have reached saturation negative coverage. It's a pity. The attack ad may be effective but it's no replacement for rapier-like wit to complement political wisdom.
* Stephen Loosley, a former federal president of the Labor Party and Australian senator, chairs business advocacy group Committee for Sydney
