KEVIN Rudd was active on the Syrian crisis this week, reporting to Parliament and calling in that country's senior diplomat. But there was no press conference; nor did the Foreign Minister hit the airwaves.
Given Rudd's love of the limelight whenever there's a big story in his portfolio, this was pretty remarkable. Apart from when he was caught briefly by the media outside the parliamentary church service on Tuesday - when he failed to rule out a challenge - and when Julie Bishop questioned him each day in Parliament, he kept what was for him a low public profile all week. It wasn't all self-restraint - it is believed the Prime Minister's office did not want him out and about.
This is a very delicate time for Rudd. The first parliamentary week of 2012 has been better for Julia Gillard, but the leadership remains an open wound on Labor's body. The party knows the issue has yet to be resolved. Rudd's backers believe the best arguments they have for change are that the PM is irreparably on the nose in the electorate and she repeatedly missteps. Rudd has to wait for her to effectively collapse rather than being seen to push her.
Of course, leadership challenges proceed at various levels. Advocacy for Rudd goes on behind the scenes. And he is not entirely under wraps - tomorrow he will be out campaigning in Brisbane for the apparently doomed Bligh government.
On Monday the leadership story will be given another kick along with an ABC Four Corners profile of Rudd. Gillard has given an interview; Rudd hasn't (at least so far). Reportedly Con Sciacca, from an earlier Labor government, has given Rudd a strongly negative character reference. Whether the program will help or hinder the aspirant is yet to be seen.
Despite the assistance the Age/Nielsen poll gave Gillard, and her own feisty performance in Parliament, the Rudd forces expect the leadership to come to a crunch by mid-year. No one is clear about when or how: the theory is that it is a brittle situation that at some point will explode with a bang.
In campaigning in Queensland, Rudd runs the risk that his critics can link him to a state defeat. In one sense he has no choice: he has been close to Anna Bligh for years and had to help out. If he did nothing, it would reflect badly on him. Apart from that, he likes showing off his electioneering skills, although the campaign organisers in Queensland have made sure his activities are local.
Anyway, a Labor debacle in the north is far more dangerous for Gillard than for Rudd: the result would be interpreted as having a sizeable element of fed-bashing, and it would send the federal backbench into a panic. Whether it would focus caucus members' minds on the leadership sharply enough to bring the situation to a head quickly is the big question.
Gillard's fightback against the Rudd pressure depends in part on how well she can fight back against Tony Abbott. To do this, she is using the economic debate, and this week she has had some success in painting Abbott and his colleagues as flaky on the surplus.
The opposition at the 2010 election promised a 2012-13 $6 billion surplus. Its position now is that it is not committing to a surplus in its first term until much closer to the election when it sees the figures after what, by that time, could be two more budgets.
Given the economic uncertainty - to say nothing of the Coalition's difficulty juggling its promises and proposed savings - this stance, looked at objectively, can be seen as prudent. But the government has been able to cast the opposition as confused and not committed to a surplus. That is despite Gillard herself refusing on Wednesday to tie a re-elected government into a surplus - she just said there would be a 2012-13 surplus, and Labor was committed to running one over the economic cycle.
The Coalition regards the economy as its strong ground, so it is dangerous for it when its messages come across as muddled. It reinforces the government's claim that Abbott personally is weak on economics, that he is profligate with spending and vague on savings and, now, that he is not giving priority to a surplus.
The opposition's economic team, including Joe Hockey and Andrew Robb, is not sharp or clear enough. Yesterday, for example, Hockey sounded on the back foot when questioned by the ABC's Jon Faine over manufacturing.
It is obvious that the Coalition's economic strength could be boosted if Malcolm Turnbull were part of the team, and indeed if it also included former Howard chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos (the latter as, say, shadow assistant treasurer). But internal politics prevents the most rational line-up.
Gillard has responded to opposition attacks this week over the role of her office in the Australia Day fracas and the extraordinarily long Fair Work Australia inquiry into Craig Thomson by declaring these preoccupations show the Coalition's priorities are not the economy and jobs.
But the opposition was undeterred yesterday, despite the risk of looking off the (economic) pace - which suggests it may think that throwing anything that might discredit Gillard is worth some cost in its own image.
It's unlikely that the Coalition's below-par performance will fundamentally change the public's view of Gillard. But if Labor changed leaders and did get a bounce, a lot more attention would come, publicly and from within, on the opposition's weak points.
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