The Media Monitors Top 20

The media’s totally unfair muddling of the Opposition Leader’s crystal clear position on climate change pushed Brendan Nelson up the list, writes Patrick Baume.

The media’s totally unfair muddling of the Opposition Leader’s crystal clear position on climate change and his Treasury and Environment spokesmen’s clear indication that they had had a “chat” (behind the dunnies?) with Dr Nelson and knew what he really wanted to say, got them all higher up the list, along with Tony Abbott, who it seems doesn’t like religious zealots.

Meanwhile our favourite Central Coast pair finally drifted out of the Top Ten, Alexander Downer is still clinging like a limpet to our hearts and minds and Wayne Swan continues to remind everyone how hard it is to deliver fundamental economic reform, without really delivering anything much at all.

TW	Move	Position	Politician	Press Index	Radio Index	TV Index	Internet Index	Raw total	INDEX
1	0	PM	Kevin Rudd	1,000	1,000	1,000	1,000	*26,977*	1,000
2	3	Opp Leader	Brendan Nelson	289	504	124	345	*9,886*	315
3	0	Premier	Morris Iemma	293	367	109	451	*10,721*	305
4	6	Cabinet	Wayne Swan	190	155	42	161	*4,050*	137
5	3	Cabinet	Penny Wong	102	203	117	95	*3,592*	129
6	0	Premier	Anna Bligh	106	90	48	230	*4,773*	119
7	14	Shadow	Malcolm Turnbull	105	180	42	78	*2,755*	101
8	-1	Backbench	Alexander Downer	98	125	43	85	*2,526*	88
9	5	Party leader	Bob Brown	101	100	56	70	*2,187*	82
10	5	Cabinet	Julia Gillard	121	90	50	65	*2,016*	82
11	-9	Backbench	Belinda Neal	47	57	53	167	*3,492*	81
12	-8	State Minister	John Della Bosca	60	53	40	154	*3,179*	77
13	6	Cabinet	Joel Fitzgibbon	95	107	31	67	*2,040*	75
14	8	Cabinet	Stephen Smith	52	149	12	79	*2,382*	73
15	-6	Premier	John Brumby	91	75	32	76	*1,985*	68
16	14	Shadow	Tony Abbott	78	97	22	67	*1,913*	66
17	6	Shadow	Greg Hunt	72	93	16	57	*1,690*	59
18	-2	Cabinet	Nicola Roxon	53	84	36	65	*1,850*	59
19	-7	NSW Opp Ld	Barry O’Farrell	36	60	4	104	*2,177*	51
20	-9	Cabinet	Tony Burke	20	86	2	71	*1,768*	45

The Top five as you would, for once, expect it to be: the redoubtable Premier maintaining his spot amongst the Federal leaders and economic spokespeople.

Rank	Politician	Talkback
1	Kevin Rudd	382
2	Brendan Nelson	180
3	Morris Iemma	62
4	Wayne Swan	48
5	Malcolm Turnbull	48

Some might say we’re cheating by having George Pell as the weekly celebrity, as they may consider him just as much a politician as anyone else on the list, but we wouldn’t dream of saying something so controversial (or annoying) as that.