KEY POINTS:
Similar policies, a similar look and even caught cuddling the same baby - Australia's conservative Prime Minister John Howard and Labor rival Kevin Rudd are shadowing each other closely in a copycat election campaign.
Each side has accused the other of copying policies for the November 24 election.
Analyst Nick Economou said the copycat campaign was a deliberate strategy by Labor to minimise differences between the parties to appeal to voters who were nervous about change.
"People are running around saying Kevin Rudd is just John Howard reconstituted. That's probably what you have to be in this environment to get elected," said Economou, from Melbourne's Monash University.
Rudd has attempted to neutralise Howard's usual advantage on economic management by outlining identical economic policies in government, and promising to be an economic conservative.
Both men have promised to keep the budget in surplus, to keep pressure off inflation and interest rates, and both have also promised about A$34 billion ($41.17 billion) in tax cuts.
Howard has accused Labor of stealing more than 30 of his policies.
The copying has extended to next week's major campaign launches of the election. Rudd and Howard plan to hold their policy launches at exactly the same venue, an arts centre in the northern city of Brisbane.
But the copycat campaign reached a new level when Howard and Rudd visited the same shopping centre north of Sydney within an hour of each other, with both leaders stopping to fuss over the same baby, 14-month-old Austin.
His mother, Brooke Byrnes, told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper she was surprised to bump into the leaders while out shopping, adding she would probably vote for Rudd.
- Reuters