KEY POINTS:
It is not often Kevin Rudd is lost for words.
But there was one word that had him stumped yesterday. Condom.
Over the past five weeks, the Labour leader has been across the country spruiking his message of renewal and change to Generation Y on popular FM radio programmes and television shows like Network Ten's Rove.
Yesterday afternoon he was at yet another school, the Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta, talking about his plans for an education revolution.
But while he might be mixing it with the young and hip, he's still a conservative, 50-year-old Christian at heart.
Put on the spot today by a reporter from ABC Radio's Triple J on whether he supported condom use as a safe sex message for young people, Mr Rudd couldn't bring himself to utter the word.
"In terms of effective aids prevention mechanisms, contraception along the lines you described are appropriate," Mr Rudd replied in his best bureaucrat-speak.
With the media pack travelling on his campaign trail sniggering on the sidelines, Mr Rudd was temporarily speechless before bursting into a fit of giggles.
He was on safer ground during the morning when he headed to the western Sydney seat of Macarthur to meet a group of workers campaigning for an end to the Howard government's Word Choices legislation.
At the Campbelltown Arts Centre, he was presented with a petition signed by 90,000 people opposed to the industrial laws.
There were cheers all around as Linda Everingham, an emergency department clerk at Nepean District Hospital, handed Mr Rudd the signatures collected over the past three months in NSW.
She told him the signatures were just the tip of the iceberg and opposition to Work Choices had created a new social movement.
"The sleeping giant is awake and it's ready to vote," she said.
Ms Everingham later told reporters she had never actively been involved with the union movement before Work Choices but had become passionate about it because, as a mother of two, she was concerned about her children's future.
"I'm just a mother with two kids ... if I feel that way there must be millions of people in this country that feel the same way," she said.
A roar went up as Mr Rudd repeated to the crowd Labour's oft-pledged policy to abolish Work Choices.
"Mr Howard said recently he thought this election should be seen as a referendum on industrial relations," Mr Rudd said.
"Well it will be a referendum on industrial relations.
"It will be a referendum on whether we want decency and fairness in the workplace or whether we want Mr Howard's unfair laws to continue and get worse."
He told the crowd about how just before arriving at the function he'd been having a coffee in the main street of Campbelltown when a woman called Brenda approached him.
Her son had lost hundreds of dollars in wages each week as a result of the laws and the family, who relied on that income, was suffering.
"The family have had to sell their home and start renting," Mr Rudd recounted.
"It's stories like that which make me sit back and draw breath."
And it's stories like these which make Mr Rudd believe that Macarthur - held by government backbencher Pat Farmer on a margin of 11.2 per cent - is a real chance for Labour.
- AAP
