It’s still early days in the campaign but backroom deals are already being made, the Abbott-Costello show was busy insulting Gillard’s accent and Gillard was eating cupcakes in the hotly-contested Townsville sun.

Labor got a green wash yesterday with its preferences deal with Bob Brown. The ALP will direct its voters to preference the Greens in the Senate and the Greens will give Labor preferences in certain seats in the lower house.

But who benefits from the plan? Is the potential power of the Greens ruined by doing slick backroom deals with the governing party?

Some commentators think so: “By doing a preference deal with Labor, the Greens have guaranteed they won’t morph into a genuine third force voters of all political persuasions can support,” writes Peter van Onselen in The Australian.

Preferences votes from the Greens have saved Labor governments before, notes Mungo MacCullum at the National Times: “The system designed to keep Labor out of office actually saved Bob Hawke’s government in 1990, when Greens preferences delivered the vital seats. Greens voters had grown somewhat disenchanted with Labor, but they feared the alternative more.”

The Courier Mail reports Greens candidates in Queensland have launched a “grassroots revolt” over the deal. The parties have agreed to a preference swap in all key Queensland seats, apart from Ipswich-based Blair, Townsville-based Herbert and Mackay-centred Dawson.

Michael Madigan writes that Arch Bevis will get a boost in the inner-city seat of Brisbane, where climate change issues resonate and the Greens are fielding a strong candidate in former Democrat Andrew Bartlett. But he says leading Queensland Greens are yet to sign off on the deal and warn Labor not to take them for granted:

“In the Labor-held marginal of Bonner — where Greens preferences will be vital — candidate Darryl Rosin warned he wouldn’t toe the line. And the Greens candidate in the Liberal’s most marginal Queensland seat of Bowman, David Keogh, said he believed the preference decision in his seat was still some way off.”

But it may be the ALP who suffers more from the Greens’ recent popularity surge. Nick Dyrenfurth argues in The Oz: “Despite their moralising humbug, ageing parliamentary leader and quite disgraceful role in the downfall of Labor’s rejected emissions trading scheme, the Greens are snapping at Labor’s electoral heels. Polls consistently show the Greens’ primary vote at extremely healthy levels.”

Kenneth Davidson at The Age agrees: “So far, the main parties don’t seem to be taking the Greens vote seriously.”

The papers are still going overboard with the boat people issue, saying that Gillard’s Timor solution is sinking with no proper consultation with East Timor and no set plans. “Although talks are continuing, The Australian understands they are severely restricted by caretaker provisions during the election and no deal can be reached until after the poll,” reports Mark Dodd.

Gillard has been pushing her sustainable population line hard, but is linking it to boat people really helping her or anyone else? Is pushing the sustainable population line just pandering to the polls? “On population issues, both sides are not so much moving forward as spinning towards the middle ground,” writes Tim Colebatch in The Age. “They’re telling us what they know we want to hear.”

Nikkia Savva writes in The Oz:

“She says she wants to stop the boats and to keep a lid on population, not in the same breath, of course, but it implants an idea, does it not?

“It might be clever, it might win votes, it is not leadership. On the first she showed a willingness to use asylum-seekers as political battering rams in an effort to outflank the opposition.

Pledging to keep a sustainable population means nothing and everything. It fails all kinds of tests except the one on who has the most piercing dog whistle. How exactly can population be kept in check without eliminating a few million people?”

By being hardline on asylum seekers, Gillard seems to be reminding people of that other powerful redhead women in Oz politics, which may be a benefit in Queensland — “…her cynical intent to morph into Hanson may prove to be one of her best moves,” writes former Hanson adviser John Pasquarelli in The Oz.

Tony Abbott likes to spout he’ll “stop the boats”, but his language just alienates voters in a way that it didn’t under Howard, says George Megalogenis: “Each time the opposition leader makes a ‘tough’ announcement on border protection, the next Newspoll marks him down, big time. It’s the reverse Tampa.”

Gillard spent much of the day in the Liberal-held marginal of Herbert, brandishing her cheque for $2 billion in regional infrastructure funding. Much of it will go to Herbert and other mining-based marginals in Queensland, The Courier Mail notes, but Gillard insists it isn’t a pork barrel.

In its editorial, the Townsville Bulletin declared: “…she [Gillard] knows if she wins Herbert, she’ll win the election.” It says North Queensland has the “wonderful opportunity” to lobby for cash given the region’s importance to Labor’s chances:

“By neutralising the mining tax issue, Ms Gillard has effectively put Labor candidates Tony Mooney (Herbert) and Mike Brunker (Dawson) back in the race. They would have struggled to shrug off the electoral impact of the resources super profits tax in its original guise under former PM Kevin Rudd.”

Both parties are now desperately chasing the indigenous vote in marginal Queensland seats like Herbert and Leichhardt, where local race issues and candidates’ past work histories are dominating the agenda.

But the issue isn’t completely black and white. Chris Graham offers up seven ways that Gillard can attract the black vote on The Drum, saying “after almost three years of practical Rudd, who achieved practically nothing, Gillard will find she’s facing a cynical black populace suspicious about Labor’s real intentions”.

And get your cue cards ready, the leaders’ debate is coming up on Sunday night and this time it’s a once-off event. Don’t worry, it’ll probably be delayed for the MasterChef finale though.