Three Big Issues

Economy:
Nobel Prize-winning US economist, Joseph Stiglitz, has described the Rudd government's stimulus package as ''one of the most impressive economic policies I've seen"..."not only was it the right amount, it was extraordinarily well structured, with careful attention to what would stimulate the economy in the shorter run, the medium term and the long term"..."it was, I think, probably the best-designed stimulus program in the world"

This cuts the conservative opposition off at the knees when they describe it as "wasteful"... should anyone pay attention to a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

( He also said lack of consumer confidence in the US is a sign that the latter is heading for a ''double dip'' recession. A second US stimulus package - though needed - is unlikely to be delivered because it's an impossible sell, politically.)

Industrial Relations:

In 2007 the Workchoices legislation sank the Coalition government. It was electoral poison. However this does not stop the current leader of the Coalition from being evasive about whether a future Coalition government would attempt to bring elements of it back...

They just don't get it: Australian workers prefer collective bargaining. It keeps the terms of negotiation with their elected representatives - not a bunch of lawyers they couldn't afford to hire (and shouldn't have to).

Border Protection:

The classic Coalition wedge issue. Make the public believe there are teeming hordes of people arriving in boats to steal the Australian way of life. (Just don't mention they are vastly outnumbered by illegal arrivals by plane...). Goofy government ad has an image of an Australian warship in reference to this, which I dislike - because this is not a military situation per se, it's just that only the military has the resources. And in any case the navy absorbs tasks that in other countries would be assigned to a Coast Guard.
And we're not Battleship Australia, thank you.