The Media Monitors' Top 20

Several Liberal pollies had a leap in prominence this week, writes Thomas Raymond.

Several Liberal pollies had a leap in prominence this week as the Opposition played a game of Hockey Pokey: you put your left member in, you put your left member out, your right member in, then you shake it all about.

Due to the reshuffle, Julie Bishop jumped from 19th on the index to fifth, while the number-one shadow treasurer choice, absolute best man for the job, Joe Hockey, also had a jump to land in the top ten. Despite the denials, rumours persist that Costello was courted for the job, allegedly knocking it back, saying he was only interested “in one job”. So while Jennifer Hawkins remains the Face of Myer, Costello will stay on the backbench.

Not since Alexander Downer donned fishnets has a crow-eating pollie gained so much media attention. Xenophon became the Darling of the Murray for gaining a wish-list of provisions to sign off on Rudd’s stimulus package.

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	*25,369*	1,000
2	6	Independent	Nick Xenophon	211	999	499	130	*10,120*	460
3	0	Premier	John Brumby	355	508	657	265	*9,877*	446
4	-2	Opp Leader	Malcolm Turnbull	279	566	488	369	*10,886*	426
5	14	Shadow	Julie Bishop	106	488	358	60	*5,362*	253
6	-2	Cabinet	Wayne Swan	205	273	196	295	*6,817*	242
7	4	Shadow	Joe Hockey	83	368	285	56	*4,257*	198
8	2	Minor Party	Steve Fielding	123	264	186	88	*3,742*	165
9	-3	Cabinet	Julia Gillard	115	63	249	196	*4,263*	156
10	-3	Party leader	Bob Brown	60	128	170	98	*2,900*	114
11	-6	Premier	Nathan Rees	73	123	28	216	*3,954*	110
12	*	Backbench	Brendan Nelson	47	169	195	17	*2,110*	107
13	-4	Premier	Anna Bligh	138	102	91	80	*2,289*	103
14	*	Cabinet	Nicola Roxon	48	200	113	34	*2,196*	99
15	-2	Backbench	Peter Costello	58	105	111	45	*1,785*	80
16	-4	Backbench	John Della Bosca	58	48	24	119	*2,123*	62
17	-2	Cabinet	Lindsay Tanner	45	77	45	78	*1,792*	61
18	-1	Premier	Mike Rann	43	64	48	40	*1,197*	49
19	*	Premier	Colin Barnett	42	48	6	49	*1,050*	36
20	0	Cabinet	Peter Garrett	43	31	0	68	*1,194*	35

Like Senators Meg Lees and Brian Harradine before him, Nick Xenophon’s cross-bench shuffle has polarised talkback callers. While there is a lot of home-town support (5AA Adelaide seems close to canonising the Senator) there were a lot of disgruntled callers who were not happy someone was getting between them and a new plasma.

Rank	Politician	Talkback
1	Kevin Rudd	354
2	Nick Xenophon	304
3	Malcolm Turnbull	154
4	John Brumby	89
5	Wayne Swan	27

It turns out father of the year Alfie Patten may not be the wunderkind co-creator of little Maisie after all. Social workers have agreed to pay for Alfie to undergo a DNA paternity test to prove he is the father after Chantelle’s mother Penny Steadman said her daughter had slept with other boys. Currently up to six other boys claim they could be Maisie’s father.