KEY POINTS:
WEEK FOUR
Green will be the colour of week four of Australian's election campaign.
But it will be as much for the hue of the opposing environment spokesmen's faces as for the central role their portfolios will play at the ballot box on November 24.
On Thursday Environment and Water Resources Minister Malcolm Turnbull will go head-to-head with Labor counterpart Peter Garrett, former rock star and conservation activist, in a nationally broadcast debate.
Each will be trying to take the shoe out of his own mouth and ram it down the other's.
Turnbull thumped an own-goal home by revealing a Cabinet split over Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocols on climate change.
Garrett went one better.
First, he committed Australia to a new post-Kyoto greenhouse gas emissions target even if major polluters China and India did not sign up. He was forced by Labor leader Kevin Rudd to recant.
Next, he told a radio broadcaster in an airport chat that once in power Labor would dump its moderate campaign policies and unveil its real, radical, agenda.
Garrett claimed it was a throwaway joke, admitted he had been dumb and joined Rudd in promising Labor would do no such thing.
But he handed the Government a new target for its continuing fear campaign against Labor, union power and interest rates, even printing bumper stickers taunting their opponents.
For its part, Labor will this week launch a new volley against Howard's economic management and the cost of living.
It will also lobby young mothers with advertisements featuring a struggling mum questioning Howard's claims that working families have never had it so good.
NEW PLEDGES
* Howard yesterday pledged A$10 billion for the nation's roads and highways.
* The amount included A$3 billion for key outer-Sydney suburban seats.
* Rudd earmarked A$500 million in tax breaks for first-home buyers.
* So far the Government has made promises totalling A$42 billion; and Labor, A$47.4 billion.