Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will go head-to-head this Sunday night at 6.30pm AEST in the only likely debate of the election campaign.

The major parties had been wrangling over the details of the debate after Ms Gillard indicated there would only be one debate during the campaign.

The debate also had to be moved from its traditional timeslot of 7.30pm to avoid going up against the finale of the highly popular MasterChef program.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/20/2959200.htm

Tony Abbott was booed on the set of Hey, Hey It's Saturday as apparently biased audience members made a political statement on the family variety show.

Walking into the studio to take his place as a judge on the amateur talent quest Red Faces on Wednesday night, the opposition leader received the sort of welcome usually reserved for perennially unpopular resident judge Red Symons.

Fellow talent quest judge Kyle Minogue had all the cheers as she returned to the set after performing tracks from her album, Aphrodite.

While Mr Abbott may be struggling in some opinion polls, he had a little more luck as a potential comedian when he likened a contestant to the prime minister.

"I quite like the Julia Gillard accent," he said of the woman, Loretta 'Chat-a-lot-a-little' who was singing about incest.

She received a score of five out of 10 from Mr Abbott for her song about an uncle as a brother, a cousin as a dad and an aunty as a sister.

The opposition leader was marginally kinder to an elderly gentleman, who recited a monologue about a 92-year-old man who "took up with" a 19-year-old girl.

"He's funnier than I am, but I'm not sure he could keep up on the bike," he said, before giving him a six out of 10.

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Gus: I believe the generous unbiased audience gave Mr Abbott's bike three points out of ten...

From a Crikey reader — James Findlay (@james_findlay)

Behind the scenes of last night's Hey Hey episode: It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to see your idol perform live in a television studio, but all two hours of being an audience member of Hey Hey last night left me with was “I’ve got SO much to Tweet right now”.

Oh, and by idol – I mean Kylie Minogue – not the Abbott, as the papers are reporting this morning. I'm sorry, but putting Tony in Speedos doesn’t make him a gay icon. Give us SOME credit.

The Red Faces segment that everyone is talking about was the most cringe-worthy moment of the night. Red Symons came out beforehand to make sure we all booed him on his entrance -- OK, fine.

But what I was most nervous about was the Opposition Leader’s entrance which was also laced with boos and hisses. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan, and he certainly won’t be getting my vote. I don’t want a leader of our country preaching the Bible and telling me he’s threatened by what I do in the bedroom, but who would have thought the mullet wearing, hoodie-clad, hair-dyed studio audience of Hey Hey it’s Saturday would have been so vocal and, can I say, progressive? Probably not, but they still booed.

The producers were not impressed, as they paced the studio floor, with their hands on their shaking heads. Russell Gilbert even tried to calm the audience, which was even less effective than him trying to make them laugh in the commercial breaks.

… and I’ll admit -- I joined in the booing, but I feel a little bad about it now.

He’s just trying to do his job, isn’t he? [albeit, badly]. Tony Abbott is still a living, breathing person, isn’t he? [albeit, possibly a poor excuse for one]… but I was caught up in the moment. Booing Tony Abbott was kind of like shaking someone’s soft drink before giving it to them… You get so much pleasure out of doing it -- but at the end of the day, they’re sprayed with humiliation.