KEY POINTS:
CANBERRA - A debate over debates has dominated the beginning of Australia's official election campaign.
Prime Minister John Howard has offered to take on Labor leader Kevin Rudd this Sunday night in the only televised debate of the campaign, to be shown on pay TV.
But Mr Rudd says it's too early to have the debate one week into the campaign, before most policies have been announced, and wants a series of three debates, including one on free-to-air TV and one over the internet.
"It is silly and just wrong for the government of the day ... to set the rules, the timing and the contents of the debate as well, it's just wrong," Mr Rudd told the Nine Network.
Mr Howard said he was happy to debate Mr Rudd in the Great Hall of Parliament next Sunday night.
"I suggested a format for the debate and I think the national director of my party and the federal director of the Labor Party ought to work out the details," he told ABC Radio.
Both leaders hit the airwaves this morning in a radio and television blitz to convince voters ahead of the November 24 election.
Today's Newspoll shows the coalition facing annihilation, with Labor leading 56 per cent to 44 on a two-party preferred basis.
But a Galaxy poll shows that Queensland could derail Mr Rudd's plans, with Labor on track to pick up just two of four key seats in his home state.
Mr Howard would not be drawn on the polls, telling the Nine Network: "The real thing will be on November 24 and I will not be commenting on polls from now until then."
He denied the government would be throwing mud, but reserved his right to criticise opposition policies.
Mr Howard said a Labor government would have 70 per cent trade union officials in its ranks while just 15 per cent of the private sector workforce belonged to a union.
"Now that is unbalanced, it is unrepresentative and it would produce bad results," he said.
But Mr Rudd said his parliamentary colleagues, and federal Labor's latest batch of candidates, had a much more varied background than that portrayed by his political opponents.
"If you go to my frontbench I've got people there who are barristers, solicitors, school teachers, economists, people who have worked in small business, former local mayors," Mr Rudd told the Seven Network.
"I have a rock star, Peter Garrett, and myself, an unemployed diplomat, so there you go, I have a whole spread of people."
Health Minister Tony Abbott dismissed the polls, saying the real contest was now under way.
Mr Abbott said it was easy for people to tell pollsters they were going to vote for the opposition.
"It's much harder to kick the government out when it really is for keeps," Mr Abbott told Sky News.
"Going into the polling booth, that counts, that matters in a way that talking to a pollster doesn't."
- AAP
