The election campaign shifted to western Sydney with Julia Gillard telling voters the jobs the government had saved by keeping the recession at bay was the most important factor to consider on August 21.
In a one-hour ''town hall'' session at Rooty Hill RSL, Ms Gillard took 14 questions, most of which were hostile and three of which expressed displeasure at the dumping of Kevin Rudd.
She stressed it was ultimately her decision to move against Mr Rudd because the ''government was not in a shape to deal with some pressing problems''.
After Ms Gillard's session, the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, faced the floor for an hour.
They appeared separately because Mr Abbott refused to appear in a debate format.
In an ominous sign for Labor, Mr Abbott received a warmer welcome and much easier questions. After a friendly start with a ''Dorothy Dixer'' question on climate change, Mr Abbott was asked about his replacing of Malcolm Turnbull. Mr Abbott said this was different to what Ms Gillard did because Mr Turnbull was not elected by the people.
His toughest questioning was on his decision to scrap the government's broadband scheme.
Ms Gillard began by asking the 200 members of the audience to raise their hands if they had jobs and to keep those hands raised if they could pay their mortgages without them.
She asked the voters in the electorally critical region to not forget that the government had ''stepped up'' to protect jobs while the Coalition had adopted a position that would have seen the nation go into recession.
''It's about the economy and keeping it strong. It's about having people in jobs,'' she said.
Ms Gillard was also challenged on climate change, debt and deficit, pensions and gay marriage, but there were no questions about asylum seekers, population growth and traffic congestion, despite these supposedly being red hot issues in the western suburbs.
Mr Abbott was the first to mention these issues in his opening remarks.
He also empathised with people being tired of bad government.
''I want to restore good and competent and prudent government,'' he said.
Just before the event, Ms Gillard and the Premier, Kristina Keneally, formally announced the construction of the $2.6 billion heavy rail link between Parramatta and Epping, which Ms Gillard said would help ease congestion in the west. Asked if she could put her hand on her heart and guarantee the on-again, off-again project would finally be delivered, Ms Gillard said ''I certainly can''.
At the RSL, one voter expressed cynicism about the promise, given the ineptitude of the NSW government and the federal government's broken promises. Ms Gillard said she understood community cynicism but assured the rail link would be completed by 2017 as scheduled.
Mr Abbott would not commit to the rail link. The best way to improve NSW infrastructure was to get rid of the state government, he said.
Ms Gillard acknowledged the stimulus program had had its problems. ''The home insulation scheme was a mess, a lot of shonks were involved in it.'' One audience member, Joel Scalzi, who quizzed Mr Abbott , is the son of a former South Australian Liberal MP, Joe Scalzi.
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