It’s the first day of a very long five weeks, which saw a Coalition focused on what it would do under Prime Minister Tony Abbott – and the first thing would be repealing the carbon tax. Meanwhile, Labor underlined its commitment to families and car-industry assistance.

Labor’s policy announcement

• $200 million to the car industry, with Industry Minister Kim Carr to consult with car makers and associated manufacturers about how to best spend the money, which Tony Abbott labelled “scandalous”.
• $450 million funding for before and after school care so schools can extend or create programs.  Interestingly, because this announcement was made BEFORE the government entered caretaker mode, it’s not actually an election promise – but actually a government one, which means the money has been set aside.

Coalition’s policy announcement

• Tony Abbott says he has written to the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet saying the first thing he’d do as PM would be to deal with repealing the legislation on the carbon tax.  This didn’t make the Greens very happy, with leader Christine Milne saying: “We haven’t had the election yet and he is already assuming that he is prime minister.”

What the polls say

The Newspoll has put the Coalition on 52 per cent on the two-party vote, to Labor’s 48 per cent.

Must read

In today’s case, a “must-do”. Check out the ABC’s Vote Compass, a tool developed by political scientists to show you where you stand as to where your vote should be placed.

Quote of the day

While we’d like to ideally reserve this spot for the words spoken by pollies, today’s quote of the day goes to the screaming words on the front page of The Daily Telegraph.

Tweet of the day

Just some final touches to my speech about the choice Australians will make on September 7. KRudd http://t.co/7P5aGyhxt8— Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) August 4, 2013

An election announced over Twitter? That’s novel, Kevin. “Oh, that’s just the forward thinking kinda guy I am,” is the tone our incumbent prime minister seems to want to project over the social media lowlands.

Yesterday, 20 minutes before the official election date announcement was televised, Kevin Rudd’s official Twitter account posted this subtly snide throw-down: “Just some final touches to my speech about the choice Australians will make on September 7. KRudd.”

The announcement signifies that, more than ever before, this is a campaign that will be fought in digital trenches. Knives will be sharpened to the tune of 140 characters or less. Page views and “likes” will become a currency as closely watched as the notorious debate worm.

Thus, upstart will be furiously trolling the feeds of our nation’s politicians over the coming month-long campaign. We will pluck the most interesting, entertaining and baffling pollie tweets (some off the cuff, some no doubt individually chiselled by a team of crazed PR monkeys chained to desk in Canberra somewhere).

— Kimberley Thomson

Slip of the day

Given it’s day one, everyone was on their best behaviour.  This section will get more interesting as the campaign goes on, no doubt.

Wrap by Liam Quinn and Erdem Koç. Follow them and send them tips on Twitter – @Quinn_LP and @erdemkoc.

Photo: Twitter – CanberraTimes