Meanwhile Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, is heading in the other direction next week, hitting farms and country towns in North West NSW where food security and soil carbon issues will be high on the agenda.

In the next two weeks the election heat will intensify, with the start of more frequent polls, more big policy speeches, the usual mudslinging and, of course, an election advertisement bombarding before a poll is held sometime this year.

The publicity events all started on Monday in earnest when the Prime Minister-turned author launched "Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle" which was co-written with actor Rhys Muldoon over his summer break.

While an unusual project for a Prime Minister, according to the PM, it was designed to help boost children's interest in reading and learning.

This year's first opinion polls after the Christmas break make for interesting reading themselves, with Mr Rudd slipping slightly in the preferred Prime Minister stakes, and small gains made by Mr Abbott and the Liberal Party on a two-party preferred basis.

Commentators believe Mr Abbott has found some favour in the bush over his opposition to an emissions trading scheme, although this hasn't deterred the Government from its plans to reintroduce the scheme for the third time as its first act when parliament resumes in just under a fortnight.

With no negotiations over the break with the Greens or Opposition, there is little doubt the Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme will be rejected for a third time.

If that's the case, there is little doubt the Government would use it as a trigger for an early election – just when though is still being debated.

Press Gallery veteran, Rob Chalmers, writes a weekly column called "Inside Canberra" and said this week that he believes Mr Rudd would prefer the ETS bill defeated with the Liberals voting against it, allowing him to run a double dissolution election campaign based on the assertion Labor is the only party willing to do something about global warming.